"Mean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... word-picture of the place where he obtained his humble meals in those earliest days of struggle; who shared them, and in what spirit they were discussed, grave or gay! Italian life is apt to be picturesque, and these minor circumstances mean much when one tries to get at the daily life of a man. But Salvini has given us merely splendid results, without showing us how he obtained them. Yet what a lesson the telling would have been for some of our indolent actors! Why, even at the zenith of his career, Salvini attended personally ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... sleepy to enter into it much, though I daresay it was curious enough; successful speculations and hair's-breadth escapes seemed to come very thick one upon another, but all I am clear about is that this poor boy, Fernando's mother was a Mexican heiress, they—one of them, I mean—managed to marry, her father English, but her mother old Spanish blood allied to the old Caciques, he says; whether it is a boast I don't know, but the boy looks like it—such a handsome fellow; delicate straight profile, slender limbs, beautifully made, inky-black hair and brows, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to impress the world with the belief that I mean in any way to detract from the merit of Chantrey in making this statement. I have divulged no secret. I have only endeavoured to explain what till now ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... instance, by experience" ("The Formation of Vegetable Mould," 1881, page 95).) You will understand that the MS. is only the first rough copy, and will need much correction. Please return it, for I have no other copy—only a few memoranda. When I think how it has bothered me to know what I mean by "intelligent," I am sorry for you in your great work on ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... December, when people indulged themselves in feasting and revelry, and the slaves had the license of doing for a time what they pleased, and acting as if they were freemen. The original "freedom of speech" may mean a little more than these words convey. The point of the centurion's remark, like many other jokes of antiquity, seems rather blunt. He simply meant to express surprise at seeing slaves in an army serving as soldiers—they whose only freedom, so far as he knew, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... that we discuss politics or talk "shop," or gossip or jest. If we preachers and evangelists at camps and conventions would pray more instead of getting in groups and talking about a world of nothings, our sermons would mean full as much to those ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... us!" they cried at the same time. "We certainly don't mean to eat each other up. How could we have come to such a pass as this? What evil genius is making ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... granted to the Russian Government itself—as is generally believed in England—but to a private company—the "Compagnie d'Assurance et de Transport en Perse," which, nevertheless, is a mere off-shoot of Government enterprise and is backed by the Russian Government to no mean degree. The Company's headquarters are in Moscow, and in Persia the chief office is ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... girl said indignantly, as she sat down on the bank to which John had pointed. "You mean that I shall amuse you; that is what it generally comes to. If it wasn't for me I am sure, very often, there would not be a word said when we ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... mean to hurt your feelings," Chirpy told him. "If I'm disagreeable this morning, it's because I need a good rest. And ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... you would clap your hands on your ears and think the whole school had gone crazy, but it would only mean that in Mexico the children all study aloud. The sixth grade is as high as any one ever goes, and most of ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... mean to say that European influence is not plainly to be traced in both our art and literature. There is a family resemblance, so to speak, as between a child and its parents, and yet the child has an individuality of its own. ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... leads to great results in one respect; but which it is often painful to regard, and never agreeable to any but themselves, to be subject to. Of this school was Daggett, whom no dangers, no toil, no thoughts of a future, could divert from a purpose that was coloured by gold. We do not mean to say that other nations are not just as mercenary; many are more so; those, in particular, that have long been corrupted by vicious governments. You may buy half a dozen Frenchmen, for instance, more easily than one Yankee; but let the last actually get his teeth into a dollar, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Old English word commonty which came to mean "the body of the common people, commons." Communication is from the Latin communicare, also derived from communis—common, and ic (the formative of factitive verbs)—to make, or to ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... conversation I rode to the east of the Valley pike and to the left of Getty's division, to a point from which I could obtain a good view of the front, in the mean time sending Major Forsyth to communicate with Colonel Lowell (who occupied a position close in toward the suburbs of Middletown and directly in front of Getty's left) to learn whether he could hold on there. Lowell replied that he could. I then ordered Custer's division ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... humid, and the soil rich and moist, yet sufficiently friable to furnish well drained seed beds. These conditions must be approximated when the tree is grown in other countries. Because the trees and fruit generally can not withstand frost, they are restricted to regions where the mean annual temperature is about 70 deg. F., with an average minimum about 55 deg., and an average maximum of about 80 deg. Where grown in regions subject to more or less frost, as in the northernmost parts of Brazil's coffee-producing district, which lie almost within the south temperate zone, the coffee ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... did? Why then, my boy, I could—I mean we could laugh at them, treat anything that was said with contempt. Do ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... lazily, and are, therefore, one and all, unworthy of it. Well, I affirm that my reader is wrong again, for my convictions have nothing to do with my sentence of death. Ask them, ask any one of them, or all of them, what they mean by happiness! Oh, you may be perfectly sure that if Columbus was happy, it was not after he had discovered America, but when he was discovering it! You may be quite sure that he reached the culminating point of his happiness ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... idea of home, we mean, not only its outward, mechanical structure, made up of different parts and members, but that living whole or oneness into which these parts are bound up. Hence it is not merely adventitious,—a corporation ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... women always run parallels between persons who interest them, the Princess was struck with the similarities between Sergius and Lael. They were both young, both handsome, both unusually well informed and at the same time singularly unsophisticated. In the old pagan style, what did Fate mean by thus bringing them together? She determined to keep ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... I couldn't stay. I was restless. I had a foolish notion that I should like to be with a better kind of people again—I mean people in a higher position. I still kept answering advertisements for a lady's maid's place, and at last I got what I wanted. ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... "Go on, Colonel, you're always havin' yer joke. I'm sure I don't know what ye mean by Indypendence, or Westport. But if you want to get uptown, the street cars is four blocks yan. Er maybe ye'd like ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... because you must have a well-run house for your child. You have to make people like you so that they will let the children play with yours. So one gets into a habit of saying a thing that will be found pleasant, without particularly worrying whether it's sincere. But this I find I really mean." ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... understand each other, to agree and to disagree, to be in sympathy and antipathy, without asking how those volitions and feelings and ideas of other people are built as mental structures, and from what causes they arose; we are satisfied to understand what they mean. In the same way with ourselves. We live our lives by hinging them on our aims and purposes and ideas, and do not ask ourselves what are the causes of our attitudes ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... "You mean it may raise them above their station?" cousin Bessie interrupted eagerly. "Well, you are not the only one who thinks that, but it never shall. We have seen such a possible danger ahead and have laboured ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... must average at least $1,500 now. Well, fellows, that is what you cost; are you worth it? I am talking of actual, not sentimental, values. Father and mother wouldn't take a million dollars for any one of you, I suppose, but that does not mean you are worth it. An investment of $1,500 ordinarily is expected to yield at least six per cent. a ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... a little, "Gracious, child, a person needs a corkscrew to get anything out of you. I mean all day, with no chores, or ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Bending's eyes without seeing them. He ran his tongue carefully over the inside of his teeth before he spoke. "Mr. Bending." Pause. "Mr. Bending, we—and by 'we', I mean, of course, Power Utilities,—have heard a great deal about this ... this Converter." His chocolate-brown eyes bored deep into the gray eyes of Samson Bending. "Frankly," he continued, "we are inclined to discount ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... you mean?' she asked, her eyes looking straight into mine with such innocence in their clear blue depths, I was at once convinced she knew nothing of the matter with which my thoughts were busy. 'I am very glad to see you, but I do not in the least understand what you mean by the amount I need.' ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... things were so uncomfortable; but now——. I wish something could be done, my lord." Lord George could only assure her that it was out of his power to do anything. He had no control over his brother, and did not even mean to come and see him again. "Dearie me!" said Mrs. Walker; "he's a very owdacious nobleman, I fear,—is ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... much older person than you. I have seen a great deal of life—I have seen suffering even worse than yours. And I am trying most earnestly to help you. Can you not bring yourself to talk to me frankly? Perhaps you have never talked with a woman about such matters—I mean, with a good woman. But I assure you that other men have found it possible, and never regretted the confidence they placed in ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... from Spain," Hamilton commented. "I mean the Philippines; you certainly couldn't call the Filipinos peaceful, it seems to me that they come just about as wild ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... does not mean, as is generally assumed, that which is beaten out thin, is stretched out. For, firstly, the heaven is never considered to be made of sheet-metal; secondly, the meaning in question only belongs to the Piel, and the substantive derived from ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... fraternised with them and gave them cigarettes and tobacco. Some Germans were there, but they viewed us with malignant eyes. When I talked to Colonel Pope about it afterwards he said the Germans were a mean lot of beggars: "Why," said he most indignantly, "they came and had a look into my trenches." I asked "What did you do?" He replied, "Well, I had a ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... I do; and that is the reason why I suggest to the honorable Senator that this criticism about States does not mean anything at all. That is the very point. The objection certainly ought not to be that he can declare a part of a State in insurrection and not the whole of it. In point of fact, the Constitution of the United States, and the Congress of the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... to make the argument really two-sided. Before the visitor can fully explain his side of the matter some point is brought up that starts Edison off again, and new arguments from his viewpoint are poured forth. This constant interruption is taken by many to mean that Edison has a small opinion of any arguments that oppose him; but he is only intensely in earnest in presenting his own side. If the visitor persists until Edison has seen both sides of the controversy, he is always willing to frankly ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... her smile now. Then the whole truth burst upon Carnac. "Married—married! When did I marry you? Good God!" "You married me this afternoon after lunch at Shipton. I have the certificate and I mean to hold ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wish I were a man!" Glen fervently declared when Reynolds had finished his tale. "How I would like to have been 'over there.' You needn't smile, daddy," she continued. "I know you consider me foolish, but I mean every word I say." ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... in fitting up a part of the steerage into a trade-room; for our cargo, we now learned, was not to be landed, but to be sold by retail from on board; and this trade-room was built for the samples and the lighter goods to be kept in, and as a place for the general business. In the mean time we were employed in working upon the rigging. Everything was set up taught, the lower rigging rattled down, or rather rattled up, (according to the modern fashion,) an abundance of spun-yarn and seizing-stuff made, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... any the wiser had he been told that the trouble that had come to town was that of all things most worrisome, a church quarrel. What was it about and how did it come? I doubt if any of the men and women who strove in meeting for principle and conscience with might and main, and said mean things about each other out of meeting, could have explained it. I know they all would have explained it differently, and so added fuel to the fire that was hot enough already. In fact, that was what had happened the night before Jack encountered his special friend, Deacon Jones, and it was ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... she drew a step nearer to her, and gave one of the satin loops a queer, caressing little touch, which actually seemed to mean something. And then suddenly the girl stooped, with a little laugh, and gave her aunt a light kiss ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that fact and noted it as soon as he came into the room. Moreover, it gratified him, and he was pleased to reflect that he was no mean critic in such matters. There could be no doubt about it, because he KNEW as well as any woman there. He knew that Millicent Chyne was dressed in the latest fashion—no furbished-up gown from the hands of her maid, but a unique creation ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... affectionate feeling. If there are any who think that this proceeds from conscious weakness and the desire to have some person through whom one can obtain what he lacks, they assign, indeed, to friendship a mean and utterly ignoble origin, born, as they would have it, of poverty and neediness. If this were true, then the less of resource one was conscious of having in himself, the better fitted would he be for friendship. The contrary is the case; ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... "I mean to see her again," said Becafigue, "there is only a partition between her room and ours." And soon he had made a hole large enough to peep through, and through it he saw the charming Princess dressed in a robe of brocaded ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... police, we mean the state power whose office it is, without mediation, to prevent all disturbances of external order among the people.(142) It may extend its action into all the domains of national life mentioned above, whenever external order ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... new one to him, Edison followed his usual course of reading up every page of authoritative literature on the subject, and seeking information from all quarters. In the mean time, while he was busy also with his new storage battery, Mr. Mallory, who had been hard at work on the cement plan, announced that he had completed arrangements for organizing a company with sufficient financial backing ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... as we agreed at the first, difficult. Well, it's a pretty story, but—your master wouldn't approve of it. Supposing he were not killed, I mean." ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Heraclius. The Osmanlis, be it remembered, were and are foreigners in a great part of their Asiatic empire equally with the Greeks of Byzantium or the Romans of Italy; and their establishment in Constantinople nearly five centuries ago did not mean to the indigenous peoples of the Near East what it meant to Europe—a victory of the East over the West—so much as a continuation of immemorial 'Roman' dominion still exercised from the same imperial centre. Since Rome first spread its shadow over the Near East, many men of many races, whose ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... I am going to Mrs. Dunn's through the day, and Peggy is good enough to say she will be glad to keep me, though I lose my better half in Jane. I think I really have some taste and talent for millinery, and I mean to try to cultivate it; for if we begin business together in Melbourne, it may be very useful. Jane and I lay awake half the night, talking over our plans, and I do not see why we should not make our ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... prevent corporations engaged in interstate-commerce traffic from employing unjustifiably large bodies of armed men denominated 'detectives,' but clothed with no legal functions."[22] Roger A. Pryor, then Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, vigorously protested against these "watchmen." "I mean," he said, "the enlistment of banded and armed mercenaries under the command of private detectives on the side of corporations in their conflicts with employees. The pretext for such an extraordinary measure is the protection of the corporate property; and surely the power of this ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... round with great abruptness to the other two doctors, and said, harshly: "What in snakes does he mean—and who are you?" ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... impervious, is enough to make any radiant, long-accumulated genius pause in full career, question himself, question his vision as a chimera, as some faintly lighted Northern Lights upon the world, that would never mean anything, that was an illusion, that would just flicker in the great dark once more and ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... no explanation of this last riddle, except, "Dat mean, if you go on de leff, go to 'struction, and if you go on de right, go to ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... "You mean," he said presently, speaking slowly, trying to see Pollard's face in the shadows, "that if I come across with four thousand five hundred dollars in thirty days you will give me the ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... the "transient tenure that most of us have in our dwellings, and the absorbing nature of the struggle that most of us have to make to win the necessary provisions of life, prevent our encouraging the manufacture of well wrought furniture. We mean to outgrow our houses—our lease expires after so many years, and then we shall want an entirely different class of furniture—consequently we purchase articles that have only sufficient life in them to last the brief period of our occupation, ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... thenceforth of thane-right worthy." (Thorpe, 81.) The word cnaepte is similarly translated in Wilkins's Leges Anglo-Saxonicae; (ed. 1721, p. 71.) per facultates suas; but there seems no reason why it should not be taken to mean literally a craft or vessel. The passage occurs in a list of "People's Rank" which "formerly" prevailed, and is probably of Athelstan's time, even if it did not form part of the Judicia Civitatis Lundoniae.—Wilkins, op. cit. ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... aches too much to calculate just at present. Well, those three rolls have lasted me three days; the last crumb went for supper last night. Therefore, take care how you offer me money (for that is what men mean by help). You see I have no option but to take it. But I warn you, don't expect gratitude; I have ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enough that some one must have picked them—for whoever heard of blueberries growing in tin pails? So there is no doubt that when Buster took them, he stole them. But with the pail it was different. He took the pail, but he didn't mean to take it. In fact, he didn't ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... about a week after the fire, as I was coming back from my marketing to the little mean lodging where we had took shelter, and was just going in at the door, I was sorely started to feel a great warm hand on my shoulder, and a loud, cheery voice saith, 'Dolly Jennings, whither away ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... about the room, and, as before, avoiding his visitor's gaze. "I live alone, you must know, never go into society, and am, therefore, unknown; add to which, that I am a man on the shady side of forty, somewhat played out. You may have noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that here—I mean in Russia, of course, and especially in St. Petersburg circles—that when two intelligent men happen to meet who, as yet, are not familiar, but who, however, have mutual esteem—as, for instance, you and I have at this moment—don't know what to talk about for half an hour at a time. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... that the Plague is no longer observ'd at Marseilles, Aix, & several other Places; and that at Toulon it is very much decreas'd: But alas! how should it be otherwise, when the Distemper hath hardly any Objects left to work upon? At Arles it is likewise abated, we fear for the same Reason. Mean while, it spreads in the Gevaudan; and two large Villages in the Neighbourhood of Frejus were attack'd the beginning of this Month. The French Court hath prohibited all communication with the Gevaudan ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... draws a circle, and places singular things in it; mean-while the glasses begin to ring, the kettle to sound and make music. Finally, she brings a great book and places the monkeys in the circle, whom she uses as a reading-desk and to hold the torches. She beckons FAUST ...
— Faust • Goethe
... the window, looking out at the pouring rain. He felt ill at ease, without knowing why. "Midwinter's ways get stranger and stranger," he thought. "What can he mean by putting me off till to-morrow, when I wanted to speak to him to-night?" He took up his bedroom candle a little impatiently, put it down again, and, walking back to the open window, stood looking out in the direction of the cottage. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... once made, as it is said in the Old Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel—I mean the old Daniel, the prophet—should have asked him, What is to be done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? 'Obey both!' would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray to God. We know what ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... imperfect people, but the true sages worship the One Being."[221] And, again, "The imperfect have as their law the holy Logos."[222] And in this sense, it is "intermediate ([Greek: methorios]) between God and man."[223] What such passages mean is that the separation of the Logos is a stage in man's progress up to the true idea of God. It is a second-best Deity, so to say, rather than a second Deity; for those who regard the Logos as God have no conception at all of the perfect ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... Missis', because of my 'plenty good behaviour'; that I spoke to him just as to a white gentleman, and did not 'laugh and talk nonsense talk'. 'Never say "Here, you black fellow", dat Misses.' The English, when they mean to be good- natured, are generally offensively familiar, and 'talk nonsense talk', i.e. imitate the Dutch English of the Malays and blacks; the latter feel it the greatest compliment to be treated au serieux, and ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... life-blood streaming fresh; wide was the wound, But suddenly with flesh filled up and healed: The rib he formed and fashioned with his hands; Under his forming hands a creature grew, Man-like, but different sex; so lovely fair, That what seemed fair in all the world, seemed now Mean, or in her summed up, in her contained And in her looks; which from that time infused Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before, And into all things from her air inspired The spirit of love and amorous delight. She disappeared, and left me dark; I waked ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... between prostitution and insanity, and Tammeo has shown (La Prostituzione, p. 76) that the frequency of prostitutes in the various Italian provinces is in inverse ratio to the frequency of insane persons; as insanity increases, prostitution decreases. But if we mean a minor degree of moral imbecility—that is to say, a bluntness of perception for the ordinary moral considerations of civilization which, while it is largely due to the hardening influence of an unfavorable early environment, may ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ridiculed in its beginning, came to be appreciated in a degree that at first seemed impossible, and though its apostles were few, its influence was important. The words of Burne Jones, in which he gave his own ideal, appeal to many artists and lovers of art: "I mean by a picture a beautiful, romantic dream of something that never was, never will be—in a light better than any light that ever shone—in a land no one can define or remember, only desire—and the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... wounded soldiers sleep, with troubled dreams, on the verge of renewed battle which may mean their death, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... By poverty I mean the lack of reasonably sufficient food, housing, and clothing for an individual or a family. There will have to be differences in the grades of sustenance. Men are not equal in mentality or in physique. Any plan which starts with ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... Herr Koulas had at least set him upon a scent which still held him true upon this trail. The information he had received might mean much or little. German servants? Had Goritz used the servants of Baron Neudeck in unraveling the secret of the stolen plans? Had they been implicated in the affair? Did he hold them his creatures by a knowledge of their share in the guilty transaction? Three years had passed since ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... I do not mean to say that they are identical in all points. I readily grant that Father Alexis uses his thumbs better; I admit, too, that he has a grain or two more of phosphorus in his brain, for you know the savants of to-day, at their own risk and peril, ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... actuates alike in all, and when once entertained, is scarce ever extinguished:—it may indeed lie dormant, for a time, but then it easily revives on the least occasion, and blazes out with greater violence than ever. I believe every one will understand I mean revenge, since there is no other emotion of the soul, but has its antedote: grief and joy alternately succeed each other;—hope has its period in possession;—fear ceases, either by the cause being removed, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Even the soldiers by whom the marvellous victories of the last five years had been won, found themselves at the mercy of this hateful bureaucracy; arrears of pay left undischarged, fines inflicted, everything done to force upon their embittered souls the reflection that they had served a mean and ungrateful master. ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... means "the soul of man; the soul of a deceased person; the soul or spirit separate from the body; apparition, spectre, shadow":—it comprises, in fact, all we mean when we think or speak of "Spirit." We still say "The Holy Ghost" as naturally and as reverently as we say "The Holy Spirit." So for the sake of the word itself, and because it covers everything we speak of as Spirit ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... neighbors get supplied before they imposed such a burden. He knew this business was viewed in an odious light at the Eastward, because the people there were capable of doing their own work, and had no occasion for slaves. But gentlemen ought to have some feeling for others. Surely they do not mean to tax us for every comfort and enjoyment of life, and, at the same time, to take from us the means of procuring them! He was sure, from the unsuitableness of the motion to the business now before the house, and the want of time to consider it, the gentleman's candor would induce him to ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... remonstrating voice again, 'how you talk—do you mean that she is silent at home? Is she unhappy? What can be the matter ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... James B. Ricketts, U.S.A., had served his country during the Civil War and on account of disabilities was awarded a handsome pension. They lived on G Street between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets and her Friday afternoons were festive occasions. Mrs. Ricketts was no mean philanthropist in her way and ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... from hints, which he let drop long before I had heard the end of it. Unsympathetic as the man was to me, it was impossible not to be interested by it. As our acquaintance advanced, it took (his character I mean) more and more the aspect of a difficult problem in psychology, that I was passionately interested in solving: to study it was my recreation, after watching the fluctuating course of nitrates. So that when I had achieved fortune, and might have started ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... course of the war and before the fight, had spoken contemptuously of the count, calling him "bastard," and "base-born." Being made prisoner, he remembered his faults, and fearing punishment, being taken before the count, was agonized with terror; and, as is usual with mean minds (in prosperity insolent, in adversity abject and cringing), prostrated himself, weeping and begging pardon for the offenses he had committed. The count, taking him by the arm, raised him up, and encouraged him to hope for the best. He then said he wondered how a man so prudent and ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... need and nature of that Conference that I would devote myself. I do not mean by the word Conference any gathering of dull and formal and inattentive people in this dusty hall or that, with a jaded audience and intermittently active reporters, such as this word may conjure up to some imaginations. I mean an earnest direction ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... up our wisest friends; And let them know both what we mean to do And what's untimely done: so haply slander,— Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poison'd shot,—may miss our name, And hit the woundless air.—O, come away! My soul is ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... grows worse than ever. Our Saxons now declare that they understand their orders to be completed; that their Court did not mean them to march farther, but only to hold by Iglau, a solid footing in Moravia, which will suffice for the present. Fancy Friedrich; fancy Valori, and the cracks he will have to fill! Friedrich, in astonishment and indignation, sends ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of his poetry while he was in the Czar's dominions, or else remain under guard on board the ship until we were safe at Constantinople again. He fought the dilemma long, but yielded at last. It was a great deliverance. Perhaps the savage reader would like a specimen of his style. I do not mean this term to be offensive. I only use it because "the gentle reader" has been used so often that any change from it can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... courage will command respect and secure honor, even where success is unattainable. But, at the same time, let it caution against a too ready reliance on the good faith of others, and a too honest confidence in the loving professions of powerful neighbors, who are most friendly when they most mean to betray. Let it teach a judicious attention to the opinions and wishes of the many, who, in times of peril, must be soothed and led, or apprehension will overpower ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... vespers, proudly sat And heard the priests chant the Magnificat. And as he listened, o'er and o'er again Repeated, like a burden or refrain, He caught the words, "Deposuit potentes De sede, et exaltavit humiles"; And slowly lifting up his kingly head He to a learned clerk beside him said, "What mean these words?" The clerk made answer meet, "He has put down the mighty from their seat, And has exalted them of low degree." Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully, "'T is well that such seditious ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... infectious, pestilential activity, by the absurd, however well-meant, measures of the conservative boards of health, such as have been just recommended in what has always been esteemed the most influential, best-informed journal of England, I mean the QUARTERLY REVIEW. If the writer of the article who recommends the enforcement of the ancient quarantine laws in all their strictness, be a medical man, he surely ought to know, that wherever human beings ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... ourselves thinking. Don't you agree," I went on, not noticing (until it was too late) that all other conversation had ceased, and the whole dinner-party was listening, "don't you agree that the oddest of all are the improper thoughts that come into one's head—the unspeakable words I mean, and Obscenities?" When I remember that remark, I hasten to enlarge my mind with ampler considerations. I think of Space, and the unimportance in its unmeasured vastness, of our toy solar system; I lose myself in speculations on the lapse of Time, reflecting how at the best our human ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... a very mean thing to say, and she knew it. Afterwards she thought of many spirited and apposite words she might have spoken, but at the moment all she could do was to fling herself haughtily out of the buggy ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... the rain and the dark notwithstanding. Again fitfully he began to see those leaping points of light; but it was only here and there. Whenever he focussed his attention upon them they eluded him. For these also he held his wife in some fashion responsible. What did she mean by leaving him thus? How dared she enter the house that was his while he was still groping without? He believed that she would shut his own door against him if she dared. He was sure she hated him, as he hated ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... faculties, feelings, and activities, though we are bound to suppose that in the divine nature they exist in higher degrees, perhaps in infinitely higher degrees, than the corresponding faculties, feelings, and activities of man. In short, by a God I mean a beneficent supernatural spirit, the ruler of the world or of some part of it, who resembles man in nature though he excels him in knowledge, goodness, and power. This is, I think, the sense in which the ordinary man speaks of a God, and I believe ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... perceive that a literature such as you mean would be wholly incompatible with that perfection of social or political felicity at which you do us the honour to think we have arrived? We have at last, after centuries of struggle, settled into a form of government with which we are content, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... circumstances, he was enabled to attend such schools as the district furnished. Little worth knowing was taught there; but among that little was the Latin language; and through that door the young dreamer was introduced into the broad domains of history, where, abandoning the mean present, he could range at will through the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... which more than all else arouses the German mind—the Schleswig-Holstein question, identified as it is with the great question of the unity of the Teutonic race—was not taken up by the Government at Frankfort, but by that at Berlin. In the mean time the several Governments of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria had gained the mastery over their own domestic revolutions, so that they could act more freely. Austria called home its archduke and its members in the Frankfort Parliament, and finally the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... how long is the dinner to wait before you think proper to come? Everything will be cold, as usual. (N.B. The dinner consisted of the remains of a cold shoulder of mutton.)—Or do you mean to have any dinner at all? Betty, clear away the table; I have my work to do, and ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... priests, praying In dule and teen, From cells decaying What have ye seen Of the proud and mean, Of Judas and John, Of the foul and clean? - ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... gong enough letting here—I mean long enough getting here," said a voice, as Harry Rattleton hurried forward. "Browning is nearly starved. He's entertaining the girls. Hodge and I have been watching for you the last hour, and we—— Great ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... answered. He commonly spends his seventy years, if so many are given him, in getting ready to enjoy himself. How many hours, how many minutes, does one get of that pure content which is happiness? I do not mean laziness, which is always discontent; but that serene enjoyment, in which all the natural senses have easy play, and the unnatural ones have a holiday. There is probably nothing that has such a tranquilizing effect, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... first occasion only for a few minutes; yet, even now, I could not bear the thought of her becoming the wife of another. I knew I would probably see her in London when her brother returned; but how many things might happen in the mean time? I felt she could look on me only as a stranger. I wished much that I could have remained longer at Craigduff; but for several reasons that was out of the question. It was true I had been much ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... mean. Don't you know any of the fellows at Harvard, or Tech, or Yale, or anywhere? I know dozens. And you must know some. You know Sam Keith; you ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... get the wrong sow by the ear &c (blunder) 699. give a bias, give a twist; bias, warp, twist; prejudice, prepossess. Adj. misjudging &c v.; ill-judging, wrong-headed; prejudiced &c v.; jaundiced; shortsighted, purblind; partial, one-sided, superficial. narrow-minded, narrow-souled^; mean-spirited; confined, illiberal, intolerant, besotted, infatuated, fanatical, entete [Fr.], positive, dogmatic, conceited; opinative, opiniative^; opinioned, opinionate, opinionative, opinionated; self-opinioned, wedded to an opinion, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... mean!" Frenchy exclaimed, leaning over the back of the front seat of the automobile. "But he isn't in khaki. And he ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... fall of Rome mean, and what are its relations to this Empire of Britain? In an earlier lecture I illustrated my conception of the Rome of the fifth century in the similitude of a Goth bending over a dead Roman, and by the flare of a torch seeking to read on the ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... I have no friends, all are at rest these many years; ye speak me fair, ye mean me well, but I know ye not; I am alone and forlorn in the world—prithee lead ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he cried. "I revere you for your whole-souled devotion to art; I can't rise to it, but there's a strain of poetry in my nature, Loudon, that responds to it. I want you to carry it out, and I mean ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do?" thought the pious man. "Does it mean that I must suffer death at the hands of this mob, simply because I have preached the truth? Will they hang me? Will they choke me? Will they stone me? Will they drag me over these awful rocks until life is dashed out? What meant the gleam in Bonds' eyes last night in the service? What will become ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... else knows, "M.R." may mean Midland Railway, but the Midland Railway is not six feet two inches, and does not carry wax vestas about him, or drop them on the floor of the ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... Louis, the black footman, who was beside Prince—"We do not know what those lights can mean. They seem to be moving, and ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... "You mean," that lady broke out, with unhesitating candor, "that she is also a very selfish person. You know that is my daughter's theory of her—she is always telling me how Madame de La Fayette is making use of me; that while her sensitiveness is such that she cannot sustain the tragedy of a ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... mean?" asked the puzzled Mrs. Ripley; "he isn't to make any sign to us till he sees or ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... the poor people at Esterbrooke. Think of my soups and creams and ices and oranges and grapes!—and there, very often I could not get a bit of fresh beef to make beef-tea; and what could I do without beef-tea? And what would I not have given for an orange sometimes! I do not mean, for myself. I could get hardly anything the sick people really wanted. And here—it is like rain from ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... for if night does not strip him of his happiness, why should blindness, which resembles night, have that effect? For the reply of Antipater the Cyrenaic to some women who bewailed his being blind, though it is a little too obscene, is not without its significance. "What do you mean?" saith he; "do you think the night can furnish no pleasure?" And we find by his magistracies and his actions that old Appius,[70] too, who was blind for many years, was not prevented from doing whatever was required of him with respect either to the republic ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... here now; she was very violent! My own hair-brush was in love with me, and lost all her hair in consequence. Yes, I have experienced much in that line; but I grieve most of all for the garter,-I mean, the girdle, who threw herself into a wash-tub. I have much on my conscience; it is high time for me ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... choice the child has made!" she observed. "Malcolm, I am not particularly anxious for her to be introduced to your Bohemian friends. Oh, I don't mean to say anything against the Kestons," warned by a certain stiffness of manner on Malcolm's part—"I have never even seen them; but Anna and Mrs. Keston move ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Ghati labourer, naked save for a loin-cloth, asleep in the narrow niche between the walls of the ground-floor and the first storey. One wonders what he pays for this precarious accommodation, in which a sudden movement during sleep may mean a sheer drop down the dark staircase. But fortunately he sleeps motionless, like one physically tired out, perchance after dragging bales about the dock sheds since early morn or wandering all day round the city with heavy ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... propriety be considered as the head and the heart of the country, while 'a bold peasantry' are, in truth, the arms, the sinews, and the strength of the same; but when these last are degraded, they soon become dispirited and mean, and ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... he had defended the truth; only that what he called virtue, I called the action of the spirit of God in the heart of man. With much animation, he clasped my hand in his, and cried, "That is the very thing,—that is just what I mean!" ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... big thing," the Judge ejaculated at intervals. "When I see you sitting there, Tom, just as you used to sit in your chair on the store-porch, it seems as if it could hardly be you that's talking. Why, man, it'll mean a million!" ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... letter for you," Lacey said. "The lady's aunt and herself are cousins of mine more or less removed, and originally at home in the U. S. A. a generation ago. Her mother was an American. She didn't know your name—Miss Hylda Maryon, I mean. I told her, but there wasn't time to put it on." He handed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
