"Lay claim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tilled, and very productive. Near the site of the log-house built by his father stood a comfortable farm-house of stone. All this his neighbours saw, and called him a prosperous man; and now and then they speculated together as to the amount of bank-stock to which he might justly lay claim. ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... hands would be commonplace. His sensibility to the claims of his art is exquisite, the adaptation of his style to his subject shows the hand of a master, and if these are not the highest gifts of a poet, they are gifts to which none but a poet can lay claim. ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... "I think I may lay claim to that honor, though"—to Kirkwood's way of seeing things some little frankness on his own part would be essential if they were to get on—"I hardly know him, Mrs. Hallam. I had the pleasure of meeting ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... hardly a relish. Robertson's reputation for wisdom may have been easily won. Dr. A. Carlyle says (ib. p. 287):—'Robertson's translations and paraphrases on other people's thoughts were so beautiful and so harmless that I never saw anybody lay claim to their own.' He may have flattered Johnson by dexterously echoing ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... are still alive (those, that is, who can afford it), and write inscriptions under them, which are often quite as untruthful as are our own epitaphs—only in another way. For they do not hesitate to describe themselves as victims to ill temper, jealousy, covetousness, and the like, but almost always lay claim to personal beauty, whether they have it or not, and, often, to the possession of a large sum in the funded debt of the country. If a person is ugly he does not sit as a model for his own statue, although it bears ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... compliments," but was discreetly silent concerning the fifty francs, though I am certain he pocketed them with unaffected joy. Had I sent him double the money, he might have been induced to announce me as a king or emperor in disguise. Editors of newspapers lay claim to be honorable men; they may be so in England, but in Italy most of them would do anything for money. Poor devils! who can blame them, considering how little they get by their limited dealings in pen and ink! In fact, I am not at all certain ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... consequently obliged to go supperless to rest. It was not till the following day that they learned the death of Cyrus; tidings which converted their triumph into sorrow and dismay. They were desirous that Ariaeus who now commanded the army of Cyrus, should lay claim to the Persian crown, and offered to support his pretensions; but Ariaeus answered that the Persian grandees would not tolerate such a claim; that he intended immediately to retreat; and that, if the Greeks wished to accompany him, they must join him during ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... been settled that the improvements which Mr. Percy had made on the estate, the expense of the buildings and furniture at Percy-hall, of which a valuation had been made, should be taken in lieu of all arrears of rent to which Sir Robert might lay claim. In consequence of this award, Mr. Percy and his family were anxious to leave every thing about the house and place in perfect order, that they might fulfil punctually their part of the agreement. The evening before they were to quit Percy-hall, they went into every room, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the Knight, "in dealing with Eustace, her nephew. There will be no need to apply to the King. The ambition was his mother's. Now Eleanor is dead, he cares not for the Castle. Next month he weds an heiress, with large estates, and has no wish to lay claim to Mora's home. All is now once more as it was when she left it. Her own people are in charge. I plan to take her there when we leave Warwick, riding northward ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... what it had been. [See Arp and all his works.] There had come, as the years went by, a few recruits; but faces were missing: the two Tabors had gone, and Uncle Joe Davey could no longer lay claim to the patriarchship; he had laid it down with a half-sigh and gone his way. Eskew himself was now the oldest of the conscript fathers, the Colonel and Squire Buckalew pressing him closely, with Peter Bradbury no ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... a poetic literature of marvelous richness. Only the Germans can lay claim to a lyric wealth as great as ours. The language we inherit is an extraordinarily rich one. A German authority credits it with a vocabulary three times as large as that of France, the poorest, in number of words, of all the great languages. With such an enormous ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... just a word en passant concerning Wagner's writings: they are among other things a school of shrewdness. The system of procedures of which Wagner disposes, might be applied to a hundred other cases,—he that hath ears to hear let him hear. Perhaps I may lay claim to some public acknowledgment, if I put three of the most valuable of these procedures into ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... and Soul ought not to continue to lie in the back numbers, of a magazine. The story, being more poem than aught else, might properly lay claim to a place in any fresh collection of the author's works. I could see no natural objection on the score of its being written in prose. As Coleridge and Wordsworth both aptly said, prose is not the antithesis of poetry; science and poetry may stand over-against ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... cotton millionaire vulgar; and the American railway king I could not make this or that of; but the lord seemed a very nice, simple-mannered young man; so that I hoped—for although I am a bit of a Radical, I lay claim to having some common-sense too—if it were to be one of these three, it would ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... only takes this same perseverance and pluck to succeed in any other calling. Had he complained because he could not paint like the master, and not been contented to study on during these years, he could not now lay claim to his present success and eminence as an artist. Let others, in reading this, see in it an object, and may it bring to them new resolve to succeed in the life work they have ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... started that career of foreign war and aggrandizement which was to mark the history of France throughout following centuries. His efforts in Italy were far from successful, but his heir, Louis XII (1498-1515), continued to lay claim to Naples and to the duchy of Milan as well. In 1504 Louis was obliged to resign Naples to King Ferdinand of Aragon, in whose family it remained for two centuries, but about Milan continued a conflict, with varying fortunes, ultimately merging into the general struggle ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... he gave to the world his highly interesting work on the "Old Red Sandstone," which at once established his reputation as a scientific geologist. But this work was the fruit of long years of patient observation and research. As he modestly states in his autobiography, "The only merit to which I lay claim in the case is that of patient research—a merit in which whoever wills may rival or surpass me; and this humble faculty of patience, when rightly developed, may lead to more extraordinary development of ideas than even ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... Whereas the said Nashoby being a Tract of Land of four miles square, the which for a long time hath been, and still is deserted and left by the Indians none being now resident there, and those of them who lay claim to it being desireous to sell said land; and some English challenging it to be theirs by virtue of Purchase; and besides the Town of Groton in particular, hath of late extended their Town lyne into it, takeing away a considerable part of it; and Especially of Meadow (as wee are ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Literary laborers lay claim, therefore, to the same protection for a full and free enjoyment of the results of their labors as is demanded by those who work with their hands and who are in the strict sense of the term manufacturers. Such enjoyment would include the right to sell their productions in the open market ...
— International Copyright - Considered in some of its Relations to Ethics and Political Economy • George Haven Putnam
... possessed, it was really humorous, and the humor was apparent, even to the people of that day, and that is more than the colored supplements of today can lay claim to. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... twice before in the field; once in an eastward direction, and once along the south sea-board to Adelaide—the latter, I was told, being considered a very small undertaking, quite a coasting trip, and one on account of which we could not lay claim to much credit. I therefore was desirous of penetrating the mystery that shrouded the interior, and, with that object in view, I used my utmost endeavours to organize an expedition in that direction. Without the support and co-operation ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... in the hottest days of summer, to die out entirely. The frequent sight of a child running to the nearest neighbor's, with a long-handled iron fire-shovel in hand, to "borry a few coals ter start the fire up," was looked upon as a sure sign of slack housewifery; and no woman might lay claim to the distinction of a good housekeeper who failed to renew her cedar broom as ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... interpret everything in the greatly foreshortened perspective of immediate necessity. Most of us in this room are confronting this problem of making a living. At any rate, I am confronting it, and consequently I may lay claim to some of the authority that comes ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... brought upon the nation, were compelled to give way, and the estates represented in the Danehof surrendered, in a measure voluntarily, a considerable portion of the privileges to which they had been accustomed to lay claim. The monarchy was put once more upon an hereditary basis and its powers were materially enlarged. The intent of the aggressive sovereign of the day, Frederick III., was to proceed with caution, but not to stop halfway. By the promulgation ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... heart forged when the flame was cold?'" "I pass over then," said I, "the similar proclamation at Sparta, 'After the Lesbian singer,' in honour and memory of old Terpander, for it is a similar case. But you yourselves certainly lay claim to be better than other Boeotians as descended from Opheltes,[846] and than other Phocians because of your ancestor Daiphantus,[847] and you were the first to give me help and assistance in preserving for the Lycormae and Satilaei ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the horses of Rubinstein," said Bie; he must have meant "ponies!")—critics, Paderewski began to study the grand manner. He may achieve it, for his endurance is phenomenal. Any pianist who could do what I heard him do in New York—give eight encores after an exhausting program—may well lay claim to the possession of the grand manner. His tone is still forced; you hear the chug of the suffering wires; but who cares for details—when the general performance is on so exalted a plane? And his touch ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... obvious that these wild men, (for such they truly were), had been gifted with all the powers that most white men lay claim to,— vigour, muscle, energy, pluck, fun, humour, resolution. Only principle is wanted to make them a respectable and useful portion of the human family. Like all the rest of us they are keenly alive to the influence ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... of what has been said above, it may be pointed out that woman, even intelligent woman, nurses all sorts of misconceptions about herself. She, for instance, is constantly picturing to herself that she can as a worker lay claim to the same all-round efficiency as a man—forgetting that woman is notoriously unadapted to tasks in which severe physical hardships have to be confronted; and that hardly any one would, if other alternative offered, employ a woman in any work which imposed ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... Berlin, is extremely pleasing; and, associating itself by general outline with the ideas of the grand prototype of the eternal city, derives a degree of importance which a minuter inspection would not confer. There are numerous churches in Berlin, but three only which lay claim to particular notice, St. Nicolas, the French Church, (standing on one side of the above mentioned square) and the Catholic Church. The architecture of these is not pure in any single instance; it having ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... too flattering," says Monkton. "Considering the gray hairs that are beginning to make themselves so unpleasantly at home in my head, I, at all events, can hardly lay claim to extreme youth." ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... my absurd riches encumbered 170 me! I dared not lay claim to above half my possessions. Let me but once unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... sophistries of smuggling seem less and less plausible, while smuggling itself loses whatever of romantic glamour it may have been invested with or what little color of respect to which it might seem able to lay claim. ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... manner in which men continue to sin, while they lay claim to the merit of innocence!" he added. "Let the great of the earth give but half the care to prevent, that they show to punish, offences against themselves, and what is now called justice will no longer be a stalking-horse ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... it very easy to understand why, after years of philandering with Cicely Farrell, he was now, apparently, alienated from her, and provoked by her. But then, why did he still pursue her?—why did he still lay claim to the privileges of their old intimacy, and why did Cicely allow him ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... honor to which Athens could lay claim was that she had been a democracy of sailors, her freemen serving their country as rowers and all her famous men as ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... ought to be hasty. He don't lay claim to anything more'n natural; he says it's all based on scientific principles. He says he can tell me just where to tunnel—Now, here's Mr. Palmerston; he's educated. I'm going to rely ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... you will lose anything by it," he said in a bitter tone; "you know I shall never lay claim to my father's property, even ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... becoming immensely rich, begin with modest poverty as social stock-in-trade, and charity towards their neighbors as security reserve fund. We may therefore imagine what bitter and ardent rivalry must exist between the different congregations with regard to the various estates that each can lay claim to; with what ineffable satisfaction the richer society crushes the poorer beneath its inventory of houses, and farms and paper securities! Envy and hateful jealousy, rendered still more irritable by the leisure of a cloistered ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... circumstances in which the Jewish lamp had been discovered and to proclaim that he did not know the culprit's name. But, as between man and man, between Lupin and Shears, between burglar and detective, there was, in all fairness, neither victor nor vanquished. Each of them could lay claim to equal triumphs. ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... told, lay claim to phantom coaches, clocks, beds, ladies in white, and a variety of ghostly phenomena whose manifestations are always ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... have heard; but I have never considered their doctrine. The Christian philosophy or doctrine is almost the only one of all, which lay claim to such distinction, that I have not studied. I have been repelled from that I suppose by seeing it in so great proportion the property of the vulgar. What they so rejoiced in, it has appeared to me, could not at the same time be what would yield me either pleasure or wisdom. ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... poet. The language used in praise of his efforts by Pliny the elder, our one authority on this point, is so extravagant as to be virtually meaningless.[425] Of the literary exploits of his brother Domitian (81-96 A.D.) there is more to be said. It pleased him to lay claim to distinction both in prose and verse.[426] His only prose work of which any record remains was a treatise on the care of the hair;[427] his own baldness rankled in his mind and turned the calvus Nero ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... Although Bass and Flinders had in 1798 circumnavigated the island, adding extensive discoveries to those already made by Furneaux, Hayes, Bligh, and other British seamen, it was realised in Sydney that the French might lay claim to some portion of ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... Bashi-Bazouks are owed only a quarter month, and we have some L500 in the Treasury. It is quite a miracle. We have lost two battles, suffering severe losses in these actions of men and arms, and may have said to have scrambled through, for I cannot say we can lay claim to any great success during the whole time. I believe we have more ammunition (Remington) and more soldiers now than when I came up. We have L40,000 in Treasury in paper and L500. When I came up there was L5000 ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... the worse," said Fitzgerald despondingly. "Is there no family complaint; no respectable heir-loom of infirmity, you can lay claim ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... one be judged groundless, and the plea of the other but a pretence, in order to cover a folly into which they would have fallen, whether they had this example or not. For instance, in order to lay claim to the excuses, which my conduct, if I may suppose it of force enough to do either good or hurt, will furnish, it is necessary, that the object of their wish should be a girl of exquisite beauty (and that not only in their own blinded and partial judgments, but ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... I do when I think of his monstrous claims," cried Wendot with flashing eyes. "Who is the King of England that he should lay claim to our lands, our homage, our submission? My blood boils in my veins when I think of things thus. And yet there are moments when it seems the lesser ill to yield such homage to one whom the world praises as statesman and soldier, than to see our land torn and distracted ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... should appear from anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... just what those things are, but I supposed they were available only to a sort of sixth sense—or seventh! Why, I have five senses, but I don't lay claim ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... never believe more than half what they say, they are such unconscionable braggers. Just as you have got a thing done, if they see it likely to be successful, they are always for interfering; and then its tea to one but they lay claim to half, or even all of the credit. You may remember, Aggy, when I painted the sign of the bold dragoon for Captain Hollister there was that fellow, who was about town laying brick-dust on the houses, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... ask of you, in all earnestness and candor, to give it now your warm, your hearty support, so that you may not only assist in securing for yourselves and the public the great end of its establishment, but that you may, by and by, safely, and without the fear of successful contradiction, lay claim to the honor of being among its early friends and upholders. There is something noble and magnanimous in rendering substantial aid and support to a cause in the hour of its weakness and in the time of its need; whilst ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... her metallic stores to be of service to man. If the knowledge of fire was the starting point of human advancement, surely the knowledge of metals, their useful properties, and how to extract them from their ores, may lay claim to being the starting point of our present enlightenment. We have but to glance around us to see how many of our daily comforts are dependent on the use of metals. Should we, by any mischance, become deprived of the use of iron, ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... to the present work: it is devoted to an account of what befell me in Spain whilst engaged in distributing the Scripture. With respect to my poor labours, I wish here to observe, that I accomplished but very little, and that I lay claim to no brilliant successes and triumphs; indeed I was sent into Spain more to explore the country, and to ascertain how far the minds of the people were prepared to receive the truths of Christianity, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... others, you too would be capable of breaking your plighted troth; but I did not know that so basely you could lie! I have been listening by your uncle's door! So what about that child Zosia? Has she attracted your regard? And do you traitorously lay claim to her! Hardly had you deceived one unfortunate, when already beneath her very eyes you were seeking new victims! Flee, but my curses will reach you—or remain, and I will publish your perfidies to the ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... within a yard of his nearest neighbour. My informant, Colonel Warren, R. A., chief commissioner of Limasol, assured me that some holders of land in his district, whose titles show an amount of ninety donums, lay claim to ten times the area. There is hardly a proprietor who does not occupy a ridiculous surplus when compared with his title-deeds, and the encroachments are ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... barbarism. The tastes are too uncultivated to exercise any essential influence; and when they do exist, it is usually with the pretension and effort that so commonly accompany infant knowledge. The struggle is only so much the more severe, in consequence of the late pele mele, while men lay claim to a consideration that would seem beyond their reach, in an older and more regulated community. It is during this period that manners suffer the most, since they want the nature and feeling of the first condition, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... lay claim to being put together from original documents; they are only the attempt at collecting, from large and often not easily accessible histories, the more interesting or important scenes and facts, and at arranging them so that they may best impress the imagination and memory of the young, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... mean the polity and discipline of it, and it is that which maketh all the contention; for as to the doctrines expressed in the articles, I do not find high church to be in any manner of pain; but they who lay claim to most orthodoxy can distinguish themselves out of them." It is observable in this author, that his style is naturally harsh and ungrateful to the ear, and his expressions mean and trivial; but whenever he goeth about to polish a period, you may be certain ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... family have been to the Crown, or as I have been to my late mistress the Queen. And I beg your Majesty may be so good not to believe any misrepresentations of me, which nothing but party hatred and my zeal for the interest of the Crown doth occasion; and I hope I may presume to lay claim to your royal favour or protection. As your accession to the Crown hath been quiet and peaceable, may your Majesty's reign be long and prosperous; and that your people may soon have the happiness and satisfaction of your presence ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... year 1297 by Edward I, King of England. The town had also a lively time in the days of Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," whose father, during his exile in France, had been encouraged by the French to return and lay claim to the English Crown. Landing in Inverness-shire in 1745, Prince Charlie was immediately joined by many of the Highland clans, and passed with his army through Stirling on his way towards London. Not finding the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... converting it to her own use had for one instant entered Bessie's mind; to her it seemed Heaven-sent, and as if destined for the very purpose for which she had been longing for it. To the bonbons she felt that she could lay claim for herself and her brothers and sisters, but for her own part she could not really enjoy them until the more valuable portion of the contents of the box was on its way to ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... record, truly Here's the work I hand, this scroll, Yours to take or leave; as duly, Mine remains the unproffered soul. So much, no whit more, my debtors— How should one like me lay claim To that largess elders, betters Sell you cheap their ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the mountain road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, each contributing a strain ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... man, since he was the principal champion of the measure in the Senate. Subsequent events appeared to indicate that Hon. Wm. M. Evarts of New York, was also an influential party to the scheme, if not the originator of it. At any rate, no one seemed to have been sufficiently proud of it to lay claim to its paternity. It was merely a temporary scheme, intended to tide over an unpleasant, and perhaps dangerous, condition which existing remedies did not fully meet. It was equivalent to disposing of the Presidency ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... and as time went on she took no pains to be more "proper" than she was at first. Her improprieties, so far as I could ever learn, arose from nothing more heinous than her possession of an intelligence more powerful and a courage more daring than that to which any of her neighbours could lay claim. Her outspokenness was a stumbling-block to many; and the offence of speaking her mind was aggravated by the circumstance, not always present at such times, that she had a mind to speak. To quote the language in which Farmer Perryman once explained the situation to me: "She'd given all ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... unconstrained, natural, and simple outpourings of his heart, delightfully recalling to our minds all the sweetness and pathos, the spirit and grace, which have a thousand times enchanted us in the music of Mozart. The accounts of his visit to Paris may, indeed, lay claim to a certain aesthetic value, for they are written throughout with visible zest in his own descriptions, and also with wit, and charm, and characteristic energy. As these combined merits can only become apparent by an ungarbled series of the letters, I have resolved, after many long years ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... The maps do not lay claim to an accuracy which, under the circumstances, it was impossible to obtain, but they will, I hope, be found to be an improvement on the ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... that he will be revenged; but notwithstanding his violence in the fight next day, he does no harm to any one, and ends with only high-sounding threats. In a word, in this heroic comedy, where, from traditional fame, and the pomp of poetry, every thing seems to lay claim to admiration, Shakspeare did not wish that any room should be left, except, perhaps, in the character of Hector, for esteem and sympathy; but in this double meaning of the picture, he has afforded us the most ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... be confiscated. Suits about these matters shall take place before the tribes, unless the plaintiff and defendant have got rid of the accusation either before their neighbours or before judges chosen by them. If a man lay claim to any animal or anything else which he declares to be his, let the possessor refer to the seller or to some honest and trustworthy person, who has given, or in some legitimate way made over the property to him; if he be a citizen or a metic, sojourning in the city, within ...
— Laws • Plato
... it was said, he had died in a doubtful and mysterious manner, and not without suspicion of having been poisoned. The authority, from which M. Quesnel had received this information, would not allow him to doubt its truth, and he told Emily, that she had now only to lay claim to the estates of her late aunt, to secure them, and added, that he would himself assist in the necessary forms of this business. The term, for which La Vallee had been let being now also nearly expired, he acquainted her with the circumstance, and advised her ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... say," Valentine rather hastily added, "as regards the pure life. For I cannot lay claim to anything fine. But I assure you that my life has ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... name of a peculiar local air, and the refrain, or 'owerword' of associated ballads, has been connected with the history of the town back to 'fable-shaded eras.' Different words have been sung to the tune from time to time, and none of those now extant can lay claim to any antiquity; but associated with all, and yet identified with none, the refrain 'Tyr-ibus ye Tyr ye Odin,' Tyr haeb us, ye Tyr ye Odin! Tyr keep us, both Tyr and Odin! (by which name the tune also is known) appears to have come down, scarcely ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... is to discourse on the same constituents as they display their virtues and play their parts on a larger scale, in a wider economy; and when I have said my say, I hope I may be able to lay claim to the credit of having spoken intelligibly and profitably, though I must at the outset bespeak indulgence by promise of nothing more than the serving up of a dish of simple hodge-podge. The question I put in a wider reference is the question ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... now—before I have told you of the only shred of triumph to which I may lay claim!" she protested. "Oh, you may be sure that I realize the sickening folly and wickedness of it all, but I swear before my God that I didn't realize it then, until it was too late. To you, Alan, clean as the great mountains and plains that have been ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... words with a perplexed pain. Was he then so selfish? "The one great absolute 'I' scrawled on the face of Nature!" Could that apply to him? Surely not! since in his present state of mind he could hardly lay claim to any distinct personality, seeing that that personality was forever merging itself and getting lost in the more clearly perfect identity of Sah-luma, whom he regarded with a species of profound hero-worship such as one man seldom feels for another. To call himself a Poet NOW seemed the acme of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... individual States. From the history and from the immobility of the constitution, we may perceive the extent to which the existence of a Federal pact checks change, or, in other words, reform. Every institution which can lay claim to be based upon an organic law acquires a sort of sacredness. Under a system of Federalism, the Crown, the House of Peers, the Imperial Parliament itself, when transformed into a Federal Assembly, would be almost beyond the reach of change, reform, or abolition. Nor is it the Legislature of Great ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... found the ruins of it extensive and remarkable. The importance of the place, at a far more early date, is proved by the medals of the Upper and Lower Empire, which are frequently dug up here, and not less decisively by the many Roman roads which originate from the town. Bolbec can lay claim to no similar distinction; but it is full of industrious manufacturers. Twice in the last century it was burned to the ground; and, after each conflagration, it has arisen more flourishing from its ashes. At the last, which happened in 1765, Louis XVth made ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... the family bread, make her own dresses, take her brother's or father's place out of doors in an emergency, while at the same time competent to grace a drawing-room and show herself conversant with the poets—who can rightfully lay claim to be more typically Australia's than any other country's daughter. Of course the city Australians are Australians too. Australia is the land they put down as theirs on the census paper. She is their native land; but ah! their ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... his two nephews, he was crowned king, as Richard III, much pleased that his plans had succeeded so well. He thought that now nobody could lay claim to the throne. But he was mistaken. One person did claim it. This was Henry Tudor, earl ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... lay claim to talent, but I am, by grace of study, a good musician; and I draw and paint, at least with facility. At one time I supported my mother and myself by singing in a choir, but diphtheria closed that avenue of work. With the restoration of health, I think I have recovered my voice. I am an expert ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the empress has been crowned at Presburg, so that there may be no link wanting in the chain which holds the several portions of the empire together. Again, the king of Hungary, while he enjoys various privileges, to which the king of England cannot lay claim, is likewise subjected to various restraints, from which the king of England is free. The former, for example, as he appoints arbitrarily to vacant bishoprics, so he inherits the whole of a bishop's professional savings, who may chance to have died intestate. If the bishop possess hereditary ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... insult towards the man and towards the sovereign; and finally, because—and the word, too, burnt like a hot iron—because, in fact, it was nothing but a mystification after all. This girl, therefore, who, in strictness, could not lay claim to beauty, or birth, or great intelligence—who had been selected by Madame herself, on account of her unpretending position, had not only aroused the king's regard, but had, moreover, treated him with disdain—he, the king, a man who, like an eastern potentate, had but to bestow ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... myself and at home. Ludloe appeared to have no visitants, and though frequently abroad, or at least secluded from me, had never proposed my introduction to any of his friends, except Mrs. Benington. My obligations to him were already too great to allow me to lay claim to new favours and indulgences, nor, indeed, was my disposition such as to make society needful to my happiness. My character had been, in some degree, modelled by the faculty which I possessed. ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... this Town a certain High Priestess of the Socially Elect and a Queen Bee of the Cotillion Tribe. Whatever she said, Went. No one could lay claim to any Class in this Town until he had seated himself at one of her Dinners, with the $28,000 Gold Service in front of him, and dissected a French Artichoke ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... or Henricopolis was founded. The place made a somewhat pretentious beginning and was doubtless intended to supersede James Towne as the capital of the colony. Steps were taken to establish a college here. If they had been successful, Harvard College could not lay claim to one of its present honours, that of being the earliest college in America. But the Indian massacre of 1622 caused the abandonment of the college project and ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... Ontario cannot lay claim to the honour of having established the first Colleges with University powers in British North America. King's College at Windsor, in Nova Scotia—the old home of 'Sam Slick'—was the first institution of a high order founded in the provinces, its history as an academy going ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... to this state; otherwise, why is the Prelatical government rejected, that another and a better may be erected instead thereof? But the pinch lies in this, Whether there be any government in the Church visible of divine right? And, if so, which of those church governments (which lay claim to a divine right for their foundation) may be most clearly evinced by the Scriptures to be of divine right indeed? If the former be convincingly affirmed, the fancy of the Erastians and semi-Erastians of these things will vanish, that deny all government to the ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... me," the trapper calmly observed, "that there is something dark and hidden in this matter. I am a witness that the traveller likes none to look into the tent, and I have a proof more sure than what either of you can lay claim to, that the wagon does not carry the cage of a beast. Here is Hector, come of a breed with noses as true and faithful as a hand that is all-powerful has made any of their kind, and had there been a beast ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "Not that I know of, Nelly. I never attended one of those big evangelistic meetings in my life, and I don't know exactly what 'religion,' as they call it, is, so I can't lay claim to anything of that sort. What I mean is, simply, I've met God face to face and found He's my friend. That's about the size of it, and it makes things all look different. I'd like to tell you about it just as it ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... family of boys and girls at the "dear old alma mater" is now an exploded fancy. A better plan is to educate the half dozen brothers and sisters at a half dozen good colleges. What faculty of educators can lay claim to all the ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... murdered father, that no place was left in her mind for the tendernesses of a present adorer. After all, this father, what was he? A middle-aged and, doubtless, quite uninteresting burgher, who could lay claim to but one distinction, that of great wealth, most of which had been amassed by ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... of India; have followed lions and tigers through the jungles and forests of Europe; have risked my life in four different battles with the Algerines, and, on one occasion, was captured by those murderous villains. If adventures make the hero, I can certainly lay claim to that honor as ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... ways, no back alleys, in the scheme, but only the broad highway of life, open always to the sunlight and to the gaze of all mankind. All this must become thoroughly enmeshed in the social consciousness and in the daily practice of every individual, before the school can lay claim to success in the ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... Blendenhall had bent their course, and its principal inhabitant, Governor Glass, showed them every mark of attention, not only on the score of humanity, but because they were fellow-subjects of the same power—for, be it known, Glass did not lay claim to independent monarchy, but always prayed publicly for King George as his lawful sovereign. On learning the situation of the crew, on Inaccessible Island, he instantly launched his boat, and unawed by considerations of personal danger, hastened, at the risk of his life, to deliver his shipwrecked ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... with thee I must tug for Empire? For I lay claim to all this World of Beauty. [Takes La Nuche, looking with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... inserted at tolerably regular intervals. He wore his hat, too, in the newest taste, with a pocket-handkerchief in the crown, and a twisted end of it straggling out behind after the fashion of a pigtail, though he could scarcely lay claim to the ingenuity of inventing this latter decoration, inasmuch as he was utterly unconscious of it: being in a nervous and excited condition which rendered him quite insensible to everything but the great ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... anti-slavery Northerners and slave-holding Southerners, Easterners and Westerners. As events proved, there was no national organization to take its place. One of the two political ties had snapped that had held together North and South. The Democratic party alone could lay claim to a national ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... he said that, while it was possible that Brother Rabbit was no great hand with the fiddle, he was a drummer, and a capital singer to boot. Furthermore, Uncle Remus declared that Brother Rabbit could perform upon the quills,[16] an accomplishment to which none of the other animals could lay claim. There was a time, too, the old man pointedly suggested, when the romantic rascal used his musical abilities to win the smiles of a nice young lady of quality—no less a personage, indeed, than King Deer's daughter. As a matter of course, the little boy was anxious ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... as I paced the night and wondered if this outcome was Fate's last crudest joke at Murray Davenport's expense. What should I do? Could I remain constant to the cherished design, so well-laid, so painfully carried out, and still keep my back to the past, surrendering the happiness I might otherwise lay claim to? How that happiness lured me! I couldn't give it up. But the great design—should all that skill and labor come to nothing? The physical transformation of face couldn't be undone, that was certain. Would that alone be a bar ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... moon-stricken, and even yet I haven't got over it. I shall dream to-night of myriads of bullocks massacred for beef-tea, and of an endless procession of pills—reaching their destination. I ask myself, in my foolish theoretic way, what earthly right we have to lay claim to civilisation. How much better it would be always to speak of ourselves as barbarians. We should then, perhaps, make some endeavour to improve. The barbarian who imagines himself on the pinnacle of refinement is in a parlous state—far ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... awakened my curiosity so that nothing can keep me away from Devil Island. I wouldn't miss going down there for anything. I simply dote on mysteries, and this seems to be a most fascinating one. I am going to lay claim to it, and I'll wager something that I solve it. Hereafter the mystery of Devil Island belongs to me till I make it a mystery ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... of these feuds with Dante's poem has given to the Middle-Age history of Italy an interest of which it is not undeserving in itself, full as it is of curious exhibitions of character and contrivance, but to which politically it cannot lay claim, amid the social phenomena, so far grander in scale and purpose and more felicitous in issue, of other western nations. It is remarkable for keeping up an antique phase, which, in spite of modern arrangements, it has not yet lost. It is a history of cities. In ancient ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... never desert him nor his government, nor yet betray him, nor seek to alter his laws; but that they should own, confess, stand by, and acknowledge him for their rightful king, in defiance to any that do or hereafter shall, by any pretence, law, or title whatever, lay claim to the town of Mansoul; thinking, belike, that Shaddai had not power to absolve them from this covenant with death, and agreement with hell. Nor did the silly Mansoul stick or boggle at all at this most monstrous engagement; but, ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... rich an' we're po', that he's got a right to lay claim to it," muttered William Ming, a weakly obstinate person, to whose character a glass of ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... know, Kennedy," confessed Andrews. "I have had so many theories and have changed them so rapidly that all I lay claim to believing, outside of the bald facts that I have stated, is that there must have been some poison. I rather sense it, feel that there is no doubt of it, in fact. That is why I have come to you. I want you to clear it up, one ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... encouragement of mine; that she had strengthened out of her tremulous questionings into a self-reliance and self-poise which I had hardly dared to anticipate for her. Some of my readers who are also writers have very probably had more numerous experiences of this kind than I can lay claim to; self-revelations from unknown and sometimes nameless friends, who write from strange corners where the winds have wafted some stray words of theirs which have lighted in the minds and reached the hearts of those to whom they were as the angel ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of property, and who, generally speaking, have been no benefit to the society in any way, but, on the contrary, after having enjoyed its hospitality, and brought no small share of trouble upon the people, have had the assurance to lay claim to wages which they never earned, or property to which they never had any ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... know of as many as ten satellites circling around Saturn, which is more than any other planet of the solar system can lay claim to. Two of these, however, are very recent discoveries; one, Phoebe, having been found by photography in August 1898, and the other, Themis, in 1904, also by the same means. For both of these we are indebted to Professor W.H. Pickering. Themis is said to be the faintest object ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... it, and this same Posidon would be the first to lay claim to his wealth, in virtue of being his legitimate brother. Listen; thus runs Solon's law: "A bastard shall not inherit, if there are legitimate children; and if there are no legitimate children, the property shall pass ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... accordingly (somewhat like En-lil), was delocalized, as it were, and his worship was maintained long after the recollection of his connection with Eridu had all but disappeared. At the same time, for the very reason that he was cut loose from local associations, no place could lay claim to being the seat of the deity. Ur-Bau, when erecting a sanctuary to Ea at Girsu, significantly calls the god 'the king of Eridu.' The sanctuary is not, in this case, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... lay claim to the whole gulch," said Mr. Anderson. "I'll give them the impression that we are buying this gulch because it is so picturesque and ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... Fox is seen, which yet is not read to have been practised by old martyrs, and it seemeth that these men would have the fame of martyrdom without the pain; and now they have incurred the everlasting pain, if by their end we may judge."[24] The man who could write thus can scarcely lay claim to our credence; for his prejudice has evidently stifled in him every sense by which a regard ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... me after my condemnation, on the subject of obtaining a reconsideration of my case, I forgot to mention that of applying to the colonel of my regiment; but, on reflection, this seemed as absurd as the others, seeing that I had been little more than three weeks in the corps, and could therefore lay claim to no character at the hands of any one belonging to it. I was still a stranger amongst them. Besides, I found, from no interference whatever having been made in my behalf, that I had been left entirely in the hands of the civil ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... in the supposition that, because the agent of His Britannic Majesty thought proper in the proceedings before the commissioners to lay claim to all that portion of the State of Maine which lies north of a line running westerly from Mars Hill, and designated as the limit or boundary of the British claim, thereby the United States or the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds of exemption from the examination of this tribunal. But, if they on they are exempted, they become the subjects of just suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... Syracuse, and brother-in-law to Dionysius. Dion was so impressed with the conversation of Plato, that he invited the tyrant to talk with him also. Plato discoursed on virtue and justice, showing that happiness belonged only to the virtuous, and that despots could not lay claim even to the merit of true courage—most unpalatable doctrine to the tyrant, who became bitterly hostile to the philosopher. He even caused Plato to be exposed in the market as a slave, and sold for twenty ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the evening, and came back to the little cottage, he was met afar off, and lovingly welcomed. And when he had finished his canal and drawn off the marshy water, he looked upon his work as proudly as if it was the only one in all his life which could lay claim to be called a good action, and which he could confidently submit to his inward judge. The day of the opening of this canal was a festival on the little island. They had no church festivals and did not count ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... first go, my lad," said the old sailor, rubbing his hands, "and, I say, oughtn't you and the doctor to lay claim to what we're ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... gentle reader, we come to a point of this history which we are assured has been anxiously looked forward to by you—a point at which the reader, already breathless with expectation, has fondly anticipated being suffocated with excitement. We may, without vanity, lay claim to originality, for we have introduced a new hero into the world of fiction—a baby three months old—we have traced his happy parents from the ball-room to St. George's church; from St. George's church to the ball-room; thence to the doctor's; and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... places of merchandise, the market-place, and exchange, and who can tell the church member from the outsider? I see no reason why we should expect more of them than other men. Why, say you, they lay claim to greater holiness; to more rigid creeds; to a belief in a sterner God; to a closer observance of forms. The Bible, with them, is the rule of life, the foundation of faith, and why should we not look to them for patterns of purity, goodness, and truth above all other ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Spanish; and would doubtless form, in connection with needlework, an agreeable relaxation, amid the stiff formality and unvarying mechanical movements which made up, for the most part, the lives of the ancient female nobility of that peninsula. The Scotch also lay claim to the invention, but we think upon no sufficient authority. Knitted silk-hose were first worn in England by Henry VIII., and we are told that a present of a pair of long knitted silk stockings, of Spanish manufacture, was presented to the young prince (Edward ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... all heard of simple men selling their souls for love or power to some grotesque devil. The most ordinary intelligence can perceive without much reflection that anything of the sort is bound to be a fool's bargain. I don't lay claim to particular wisdom because of my dislike and distrust of such transactions. It may be my sea training acting upon a natural disposition to keep good hold on the one thing really mine, but the fact is that I have a positive horror of losing even for one moving moment that full ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... Thomas, 'who is not, in one way or another, interested in horses, and who is not, in a greater or less degree, an admirer of them. Now, I hold opinions in reference to these particular members of the quadruped creation, which may lay claim (as I believe) to the disastrous distinction of being unpartaken by any other human being, civilised or savage, over the whole surface of the earth. Taking the horse as an animal in the abstract, Francis, I cordially despise him from every point ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... stream," and since the ballad first saw the light of day in Scribner's Magazine, Mr. Nutt and Lord Archibald Campbell have been in public controversy on the facts. Two clans, the Camerons and the Campbells, lay claim to this bracing story; and they do well: the man who preferred his plighted troth to the commands and menaces of the dead is an ancestor worth disputing. But the Campbells must rest content: they have the broad lands ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... generations will grow in knowledge at a fourfold rate. But still the teaching of life is better than all the schools, and common sense than all learning. This common sense is a rare gift, scantier in none than in those who lay claim to it on the ground of following commonplace, worldly, and prudential maxims. But I must ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... number, and rise by gradations to a height of 112 feet in a distance of 3550 feet. The wide, deep channel excavated in the rock is literally paved with flagstones; and these locks mount one above the other like the solitary steps of a majestic stairway, and almost lay claim to be ranked among the ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... lov'd, she believ'd it would have been Villenoys, for he had all the good Qualities, and grace, that could render him agreeable to the Fair; besides, that he was only Son to a very rich and noble Parent, and one that might very well presume to lay claim to a Maid of Isabella's Beauty ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... education at all. The priests have, however, now begun to feel their degraded position. Many of them, if they can do so, bring up their sons in any other profession but their own. There are, perhaps, a dozen among the whole body of professional priests who lay claim to a knowledge of the Zend-Avesta: but the only respect in which they are superior to their brethren is, that they have learnt the meanings of the words of the books as they are taught, without knowing the language, either philosophically ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... only daughter of the Duke of Huddersfield, Lady Ethel Claremont, and this interest blossomed into something stronger and warmer—something that at last he dignified by the name of love, though he was by no means without misgivings as to whether it could ever really lay claim to the title. ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... five thousand four hundred in all. Of these fifteen hundred were musqueteers, two thousand were pikemen, and the rest were scythesmen or peasants with flails and hammers. A few bodies, such as our own or those from Taunton, might fairly lay claim to be soldiers, but the most of them were still labourers and craftsmen with weapons in their hands. Yet, ill-armed and ill-drilled as they were, they were still strong robust Englishmen, full of native courage and of religious zeal. The light and fickle ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... but she was bound to him all the same by her wifely duty. She might have saved him, but instead of that she has been his ruin. How dare any woman rob her husband of his own children, and forbid him to lay claim to them? She is a false, perjured wife!' exclaimed Mrs. Ross, ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... laid down the missive and had a hearty laugh over what seemed at best a strange, almost ludicrous, compliment. Surely he might have substituted an adjective of a more flattering nature, accorded us some more winning attribute—charming, amiable, learned. Could we lay claim ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the world's art which differs most from the Italian school,—it is the antithesis, or, to use a phrase that enraged Leopardi, "the opposite pole in art." The Italian and the Dutch are the two most original schools of painting, or, as some say, the only two schools that can honestly lay claim to originality. The others are only daughters or younger sisters, which bear a certain resemblance to their elders. So Holland even in its art offers us that which we most ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis |
