"Mere" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not mere intellectual belief or opinion; nor is it mere feeling, nor a mystical emotion in which we are wholly passive; but a sentiment, in which belief, feeling, and determination are blended together. The belief is ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... it increased their indignation. So it was no act of a mere fanatic, but the work of the Guises, and probably of ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... massacred. The terrible slaughter occupied a considerable time; and when their cartridge-boxes were emptied, the French soldiers had to complete the massacre with their bayonets. Of the whole of these victims one only, a mere youth, asked for mercy; the rest met their fate with heroic calmness and resolution. Napoleon's excuse for this hideous massacre was that the soldiers had broken the engagement they took at El A'rich, but this applied to only a very small proportion of the garrison, and the massacre was ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... her chair. The peppermint bottle was held at her nose. It may have been that which caused her eyes to narrow to mere slits as she gazed at the drooping Julia. She said nothing. Suddenly Julia seemed to feel the silence. She looked down at Sadie Corn. As by a miracle all the harsh, sullen lines in the girl's face vanished, to be replaced by ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... had long been used to see his mere will turn into absolute law, he had now reached a point where the submission of his subjects broke down. The laity indeed obeyed, but the clergy, with the Archbishop of York at their head, absolutely refused to abjure obedience to Pope and Primate. Throughout the strife the leading clergy had ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... or bad people are trying to destroy us. They kill us because our feathers are beautiful. Even pretty and sweet girls, who we should think would be our best friends, kill our brothers and children so that they may wear our plumage on their hats. Sometimes people kill us for mere wantonness. Cruel boys destroy our nests and steal our eggs and our young ones. People with guns and snares lie in wait to kill us; as if the place for a bird were not in the sky, alive, but in a shop window or in a glass case. If this goes on much longer all our ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... in interfering may thus exhibit a range of symptoms which from the simplest form of a mere "touching," may successively assume the serious characters of an ugly cicatrix, a hard, plastic swelling, or perhaps, as witnessed at the knee, of periostitis with ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... much wider the world was than she had dreamed, and had opened new distances on the right, on the left, and far ahead; and nowhere in them all could eye see, or ear hear, aught of that one without whom to go back to old things was misery, and to go on to new was mere weariness. And the dear little mother at home!—worth nine out of any ten of all this crowd—still at home in that old tavern-keeping life, now intolerable to think of, and still writing those yearning letters that bade the daughter not return! No wonder Marguerite's ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... fathers, mothers, and to guardian aunts, that the welcome of those homes was perhaps the best part of it all. Here was the great stout sailor-boy whom we had not seen since he came back from sea. He was a mere child when he left our school years on years ago, for the East, on board Perry's vessel, and had been round the world. Here was brave Mrs. Masury. I had not seen her since her mother died. "Indeed, Mr. Ingham, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... mere laughing matter, the whole thing. My poor innocent spine has to suffer for my ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... him as he went, and must have known from his gait what was the nature of the answer he had received. But yet she went quickly upstairs to inquire. The matter was one of too much consequence for a mere inference. Mary had gone from the sitting-room, but her stepmother followed her upstairs to her bed-chamber. "Mamma," she said, "I couldn't do it;—I couldn't do it. I did try. Pray do not scold me. I did try, but I could not do it" Then she ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... inclined to my proposal, so I told her that I should stay six weeks at Turin, that I had fallen in love with her on the promenade, and that the purchase of the horse had been a mere pretext for discovering to her my feelings. She replied modestly that she was vastly flattered by the liking I had taken to her, and that I need not have made her such a present to assure ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Americans, seeing the French so serious and intent on matters of beauty, fancy it to be mere affectation. To be serious on a barrel of flour, or a bushel of potatoes, we can well understand; but to be equally earnest in the adorning of a room or the "composition" of a bouquet seems ridiculous. But did not He who made the appetite for ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... California would be considered mere underbrush compared with the giant forest trees extending for miles and miles in all directions. In many directions along the foothills of the mountains vast herds of cattle were seen during the last day of ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... too, was still sticking in the folds of his turban—sticking forth aloft right gallantly like some heron's plume. Naturally he whose business it was to mend other men's shoes went about in slippers that were mere bundles of rags—that is ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... you cannot fail to see, that, after the labor of your human animal has supplied his mere animal needs, provided him with shelter, food, and clothes, he must set himself about something else. Having made life endurable, he will strive to make it comfortable, according to his notions of comfort. Comfort secured, he will seek pleasure; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... unable to decide definitely for an hour or so yet, unless he regains consciousness in the meantime. It may be a fracture of the skull or a mere concussion." ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... ray to cross them; it has a chemical or magnetic effect; it sickens them. But I am never more free and royal than when the subtile celerity of its magic combinations, whatever they are, is at work. Never had I known the mere joy of being so intimately as to-night. The river slept soft and mystic below the woods, the sky was full of light, the air ripe with summer. Out of the yellow honeysuckles that climbed around, clouds of delicious fragrance stole and swathed me; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... in mere animal terror each time the ill-fated ship rolled or pitched more terribly than usual; and she was now a mere plaything in the arms of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... this Humour's so pleasant in thee, I wish thou wouldst pursue it a little— Haunce, bear up to him, he's but a mere Huff, ha, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... remarkably uninterested, and the press finds any other news more thrilling. The Reynolds woman is probably responsible for many remorseful twinges in the breasts of eminent patriots, but your name alone is given to the public. As for Mrs. Croix, I don't suppose that any mere mortal has ever resisted her, but if any other man has regretted it, history is silent. What do you suppose is ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... existence; and the dominion and supremacy of written constitutions over citizens, communities, States, and empires. The right of government in civilized States more than suggests the right and supremacy of civilization over barbarism. But the right of mind over matter, of intellect over mere animal life, of reason over passion, is asserted upon the broadest principles of philosophy in nature. The Infinite Spirit, unseen, moves the visible material creation as the creature ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... back to live with her, she hoped, as long as life lasted. Her old friend, Sir John Wallis, had only recently declared her his heiress; and, although Kitty would never leave her father for anything that mere money could offer, she was glad to feel that he was no ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... a pause. The young man did not wish to contradict him, but he felt that he knew the ways and hours of the Head of the Firm very much better than a mere stranger arriving on foot just as the Bank was due to close for the day. He wondered who Coryndon was, and what his very pressing business could possibly be, but even in his wildest flights of fancy, and, with the thermometer at 112 deg., flights of fancy do not carry far, he never even ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... participating in the third phase (a common European currency) of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), but Denmark has decided not to join 12 other EU members in the euro; even so, the Danish Krone remains pegged to the euro. Given the sluggish state of the European economy, growth in 2003 was a mere 0.3%. ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... diplomacy. They grasped this fact from the first. It may, indeed, have contributed to form their mutual life. It was more equitable and caused fewer collisions. At the slightest disagreement it was at once "Monsieur mon fils" or simply "Monsieur," or "Madame ma mere," or "Madame." ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... peace and his home that was in the making. There was a restfulness and a satisfaction in Doris Cleveland which he dreaded to imperil because he had the feeling that he would never find its like again. He felt that Myra's mere presence was like a sword swinging over his head. There was no armor he could put on against that weapon if it ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... left behind, sullen and untamed, but with a horrible indefinable dread on them that was worse than death, or mere pain, howsoever fierce—these saw all the ships go out of the harbour merrily with swelling sail and dashing oar, and with joyous singing of those aboard; and Svend's was ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... wards they have no permanent organization, but elect officers at each weekly meeting. In the other wards clubs will be formed within a few days. It should be borne in mind that the above clubs are independent of the Invincible Club, which is not a mere ward organization, but represents the ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... mischief-loving, wayward, that would ever be to him the baby he had played with, nursed, and comforted. Margot weary! Had he not a thousand times carried her sleeping in his arms. Margot in danger! At the mere thought his ...
— The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl • Jerome K. Jerome
... was inflicted, to which other circumstances might have contributed, that the master should be protected when, in all probability, he never intended to produce so fatal a result? But the phrase "he is his money" has been adduced to show that Hebrew servants were regarded as mere things, "chattels personal;" if so, why were so many laws made to secure their rights as men, and to ensure their rising into equality and freedom? If they were mere things, why were they regarded as responsible ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Khan" and "Christabel"; but in dealing with these the reader may do well to form his own judgment. Both fragments contain beautiful lines, but as a whole they are wandering, disjointed, inconsequent,—mere sketches, they seem, of some weird dream of mystery or terror which Coleridge is trying in ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... and looked on life, and us, with kinder mad and distrustful eyes. Above all others, he wuz mean to his twin sister; he looked down on her and browbeat her the worst kind, and felt older than she did, and acted as if she wuz a mere child compared to him, though he wuzn't more'n five minutes older than she wuz, if ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... abstraction of existence to the multifarious phenomena {12} of existence as known. And it was, perhaps, because Anaximander failed to work out this aspect of the question, that in the subsequent leaders of the school movement, rather than mere existence, was ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... Cupid's Elixir "Kisses." It stands in your first volume as an Effusion, so that, instead of prefixing The Kiss to that of "One Kiss, dear Maid," &c., I have ventured to entitle it "To Sara." I am aware of the nicety of changing even so mere a trifle as a title to so short a piece, and subverting old associations; but two called "Kisses" would have been absolutely ludicrous, and "Effusion" is no name; and these poems come close together. I promise you not to alter one word in any poem whatever, but to take your last text, where ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... army. At all these inspections Carson addressed the men, many of whom were now seeing their Commander-in-Chief for the first time, and pointed out that the U.V.F., being now under a single command, was no longer a mere collection of unrelated units, but an army. At an inspection at Antrim on the 21st of September, he made a disclosure which startled the country not a little next day when it appeared in the headlines of English ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... "You were a mere child, and my father does not love to talk of it. He ceased to care much about the loss ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he glories in—for shame is a weakness he has long since surmounted.' The following anecdote in Boswelliana (p. 274) is not given in the Life of Johnson:—'Johnson had a sovereign contempt for Wilkes and his party, whom he looked upon as a mere rabble. "Sir," said he, "had Wilkes's mob prevailed against government, this nation had died of phthiriasis. Mr. Langton told me this. The expression, morbus pediculosus, as being better ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... by the Fujiwara; and even the duration of each reign was made to depend upon their policy. It was deemed advisable to compel Emperors to abdicate at an early age, and after abdicating to become Buddhist monks,—the successor chosen being often a mere child. There is record of an Emperor ascending the throne at the age of two, and abdicating at the age of four; another Mikado was appointed at the age of five; several at the age of ten. Yet the religious dignity of the throne remained undiminished, or, rather, continued [263] to grow. The more ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... others, show that incest is not the cause but the effect of mental disorders. This does not mean that the offspring of such unions are not slightly tainted by the mere fact of such concentrated incest, but these cases are comparatively so rare that they do not contribute to any appreciable extent, as incest, in causing degeneration of the race; the factor which causes degeneration is here mental disease, which ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... of mere unthinking privates who mistake themselves for sociological experts shall not deter me from finishing my speech," ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... from bough-end to bough-end! What do you say to that? And gentle ladies beneath it, that love it and celebrate its praises! And that in a town of such supreme, audacious, Alpine loveliness as Norwich!—Only the dear people there must learn to call it Norridge, and not be misled by the mere accident ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... native professors and critics are inclined to accept some features of this view, perhaps in mere reaction from the unamusing character of their own existence. They are not quite ready to subscribe to Mr. Kipling's statement ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... side, and surrounding an elastic stony axis, varying in length from eight inches to two feet. The stem at one extremity is truncate, but at the other is terminated by a vermiform fleshy appendage. The stony axis which gives strength to the stem may be traced at this extremity into a mere vessel filled with granular matter. At low water hundreds of these zoophytes might be seen, projecting like stubble, with the truncate end upwards, a few inches above the surface of the muddy sand. When touched or pulled ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... ma chere, to affect a callous indifference towards me, when I have the charm with a single glance to render you insensible, and to make you tremble at the mere sound of my voice-no, no, Teresa, it will not do. While my presence affects you thus, I know the power to fascinate has not yet ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... time for thought for the door opened and Mr. Brander entered. Cuthbert was shocked at his appearance. He looked a mere wreck of himself. He walked feebly and uncertainly. His face was pale and the flesh on the cheeks and chin was loose and flabby. He made his way to an armchair and ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... no difference to him. They were there, and the mere sight of the girl's fine mobile face and large dark blue eyes was a thing ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... life. From his own description he appeared to be a man of extraordinary powers, cramped and crushed by the force of circumstances, misunderstood by his party, and one who by unlucky chance and human folly was doomed to be just a mere student in exile instead of a leader of the people! Like all extremely self-satisfied persons Yourii entirely failed to perceive that all this in no way proved his extraordinary powers, and that men of genius were surrounded by just such associates, and hampered by ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... in the air for 13 hours 17 minutes and just over 57 seconds. By 1914 this was raised by the German aviator, Landemann, to 21 hours 48 3/4 seconds. The nature of this last record shows that the factors in such a record had become mere engine endurance, fuel capacity, and capacity of the pilot to withstand air conditions for a prolonged period, rather than any exceptional ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... myself so plentifully received at the hand of thy gracious Providence! Then shall I not be useless in my generation!—Then shall I not stand a single mark of thy goodness to a poor worthless creature, that in herself is of so small account in the scale of beings, a mere cipher on the wrong side of a figure; but shall be placed on the right side; and, though nothing worth in myself, shall give signification by my place, and multiply the blessings I owe to thy goodness, which has distinguished me ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... ascertain, perchance, if some vestige of that mystic scripture might not reveal itself to him anew, or if it had been only some morbid fancy, some futile influence of solitude, some fevered condition of the blood or the brain, that had traced on the stone those gracious words, the mere echo of which—his stuttered, vague recollections—had roused the camp-meeting to fervid enthusiasms undreamed of before. And then he put from him the project—some other time, perhaps, for doubts lurked in his heart, hesitation chilled his resolve—some other time, when his companions ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... love? a mere machine, a spring For freaks fantastic, a convenient thing, A point to which each scribbling wight must steer, Or vainly hope for food or favor here, A summer's sigh, a winter's wistful tale, A sound at which th'untutor'd maid turns pale, Her soft eyes languish ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... profound respect for the judgment of a British audience. But I flatter myself such a vindication is not requisite to the enlightened reader, who, I trust, on comparing this drama with the original, will at once see all my motives—and the dull admirer of mere verbal translation, it would be vain to endeavour to ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... dozen men, not playing cards, but interrupted in a quiet talk. Standing on the far side of the table was a man who was as evil a thing to see as was his voice to hear; his face twisted, drawn to the left side, the left eye a mere slit of malevolence, the uneven teeth showing in an eternal, mirthless grin, a man whose hands, when his arms were lax as now, hung almost to his knees, a man twisted morally, ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... for the men and food for the guns go first by giddy, zigzag roads, especially built by the Italians for this war. They are not mere tracks, but are as wide as the road that runs between Nice and Mentone, or the Hog's Back between Guilford and Farnham. When these have reached their utmost possible height, there comes a whole series of 'wireways,' as the Italian soldiers call them. Steel cables slung from ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... of the Deity are in equilibrium. The laws of nature and the moral laws are not the mere despotic mandates of His Omnipotent will; for, then they might be changed by Him, and order become disorder, and good and right become evil and wrong; honesty and loyalty, vices; and fraud, ingratitude, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Only a short time will inevitably lead to a change in ownership of the stock, as all opportunity for continued cooperation must disappear. Those critics who speak of this disintegration in the trust as a mere change of garments have not given consideration to the inevitable working of the decree and understand little the personal danger of attempting to evade or set at naught the solemn injunction of a court whose object is made plain ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the promise of figuring as a belle by and by, and being a little given to dancing, and having a voice which drew a pretty dense circle around the piano when she sat down to play and sing, it was hard to keep her from being carried into society before her time, by the mere force of mutual attraction. Fortunately, she had some quiet as well as some social tastes, and was willing enough to pass two or three of the summer months in the country, where she was much better bestowed ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... large and flourishing community of the black-blood had set itself up in the pivlioi (cocoa-nut) or kashta (stick) business, and as it was late in the afternoon, and the entire business-world was about as drunk as mere beer could make it, the scene was not unlively. At that time I was new to England, and unknown to every gypsy on the ground. In after-days I learned to know them well, very well, for they were chiefly ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... not, it appears, the eldest son and appointed heir of Khephren; while still a mere prince he was preparing for himself a pyramid similar to those which lie near the "Horizon," when the deaths of his father and brother called him to the throne. What was sufficient for him as a child, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... your honor is mistaken," said Morton. "The story of Smith's death was a mere fiction, got up by Houston to save the life of his favorite from the sworn vengeance of certain Texans, on whose conduct he had acted as a spy. I fathomed the artifice ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... notes into circulation, it's not the fault of those into whose hands they come if they discover in them beauties unsuspected by the person for whose benefit they were issued. Railsford saw a great deal more in Arthur's letter than Daisy had even suspected. A certain passage, which had seemed mere mysterious jargon to her, had a pretty plain meaning for him, especially after the interview ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... natural recovery had arrived, certain it was that Punch found himself able to move about again; and during the days and weeks that followed he it was who took the post of nurse and attended to the wants of Pen—wants, alas! too few, for the sufferer was a victim to something worse than a mere shot-wound susceptible to efficient dressing, for the most dangerous, perhaps, of all fevers ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... with Uncle Joseph and he started rummaging among his papers to see if he could find anything in her father's old letters that would help. There were few references to business matters in these and no reference to Mr. Gassett except a mere mention of the fact that he had gone into partnership ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... "this is mere laziness. Berkeley wants to witness a display of your forensic wisdom. A learned counsel may be in a fog—he very often is—but he doesn't state the fact baldly; he wraps it up in a decent verbal disguise. Tell us how you arrive at your conclusion. Show ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... would simplify matters if the railway people would arrange compartments on their trains for these various degrees. The Ph.D. crowd would certainly feel more comfortable if they could herd together, so that they need not demean themselves by associating with mere A.M.'s or the more lowly A.B.'s. We might hope, too, that by way of diversion they would put their heads together and compound some prescription by the use of which the world might avert war, reduce the high cost of living, banish a woman's tears, or save a soul ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... dear; his nature was the same, but he was strong enough to restrain his nature, and wise enough to know that his magnificence was incompatible with ordinary interests. As he got to be older he broke down, and took up with mere mortal gossip. But I think it must have ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... friendship, etc., allow themselves to be the objects of homosexual desire; (3) normal persons who, when excluded from the society of the opposite sex, as in schools, barracks, on board ship, or in prison, have sexual relations with persons of their own sex. Now Hirschfeld clearly realizes that the mere sexual act is no proof of the direction of the sexual impulse; it may be rendered possible by mechanical irritation (as by the stimulation of a full bladder) and in women without any stimulation at all; such cases can have little psychological significance. Moreover, he seems to admit that some ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... still dared sometimes to tell the Prince of his faults, for he loved him as if he had been his own son. At first Prince Darling had thanked him, but after a time he grew impatient and thought it must be just mere love of fault-finding that made his old tutor blame him when everyone else was praising and flattering him. So he ordered him to retire from his Court, though he still, from time to time, spoke of him as a worthy man whom he respected, even if he no longer loved him. His unworthy ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... to know concerning the quarrels of the Regent and his wife, upon which subject F., of course, evaded giving him any answers. He said, "On dit qu'il aime la Mere de ce Yarmouth—mais vous Anglais, vous aimez les vielles Femmes," and he laughed very much. He avoided speaking of Maria Louisa, but spoke of Josephine with affection, saying, "Elle etoit une excellente Femme." He said that the motive of his expedition into Russia was, first, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... had been called up into the old gentleman's face by the good wine, were gone. Looking gloomily before him, he said sharply, "Ah! that's an instance of the corruption of our abandoned young men. They fix their infernal eyes, there probate seducers, upon mere children. For I tell you, my good sir, that my niece Marianna is quite a child, quite a child, only just outgrown ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... that One-eye had no notion of going to Washington; he was afraid of nobody, and his plea of possible danger among the Sioux was mere nonsense to deceive the white men. Captain Clark visited the village of Black Cat, and that worthy savage made the same excuse that Le Borgne (One-eye) had already put forth; he was afraid of the Sioux. ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... am sorry, Gentlemen, the Road was so barren of Money. When my Friends are in Difficulties, I am always glad that my Fortune can be serviceable to them. [Gives them Money.] You see, Gentlemen, I am not a mere Court Friend, who professes every ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... powerful organs of spiritual vision lie. There are seals that cover up many passages and pages of the Bible which no light or fire of genius can dissolve; there are hidden riches here that no labor of mere learned research can get at and spread forth. But those seals melt like the snow-wreath beneath the warm breathings of desire and prayer, and those riches drop spontaneously into the bosom of the humble and the contrite, the ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... she would be crossing our stern, and now I kept the night-glass immovably bearing upon her, watching for the sudden yaw that should indicate the discovery of a possible enemy in her path. I had by this time made up my mind that she was a Spaniard, and the mere fact of her adventuring, herself thus alone, instead of availing herself of a convoy, was to me sufficient assurance that she went heavily armed and manned. It also suggested the possibility that she might be carrying an exceptionally- rich freight, it sometimes happening ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... the School divines (said Luther) with their speculations in the Holy Scriptures, are merely vain and human cogitations, spun out of their own natural wit and understanding. They talk much of the union of the will and understanding, but all is mere fantasy and fondness. The right and true speculation (said Luther) is this, Believe in Christ; do what thou oughtest to do in thy vocation, &c. This is the only practice in divinity. Also, 'Mystica Theologia Dionysii' is a mere fable, and a lie, like to Plato's fables. 'Omnia ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... this. Evidently I was losing my reason completely if I could threaten to kill a helpless woman. And she, surmising apparently that my threats were mere words, answered ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... admirable device of Panurgus, King of Oceana, in making farms and houses of husbandry of a standard; that is, maintained with such a proportion of land to them as may breed a subject to live in convenient plenty, and no servile condition, and to keep the plough in the hands of the owners, and not mere hirelings. And thus, indeed," says he, "you shall attain to Virgil's character which he gives of ancient Italy." But the tillage, bringing up a good soldiery, brings up a good commonwealth; which the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... tell you, sir—I was a mere automaton, a machine, in the hands of others. A new publication was sent to me, with a private mark from my employer, directing the quantum of praise or censure which it was to incur. If the former were allotted to it, the best passages were selected; if condemned to the latter, all the worst. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... having first killed the pig, "we are all pretty much alike: it is the bad roasting that frightens us. Mere death ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... sundering ties and fearful looking forward, that Richard and Katherine Hyde came, from the idyllic peace and beauty of their Norfolk house. But there was something in it that fitted Hyde's real disposition. He was a natural soldier, and he had arrived at the period of life when the mere show and pomp of the profession had lost all satisfying charm. He had found a quarrel worthy of his sword, one that had not only his deliberate approval, but his passionate sympathy. In fact, his first blow for American independence ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... the work, might be selected from respectable European journals; but the mere fact, that within twelve years, seventy thousand copies of it have been purchased by the English public, is sufficient evidence ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... which was possibly to the effect that he was a great deal better doctor than Dr. Bush, who had failed to save the life of our late schoolmate. In recalling this childish episode which caused me so much anxiety I am surprised that such unnecessary attention was paid to the passing remark of a mere child. ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... that few men cover a large enough field of study to enable them to deal effectively with this tremendous subject. What is more, those who shouted so loudly about Evolution as explaining all things have come to see that, in a sense, Evolution explains nothing by itself. Mere description of facts undoubtedly does serve a very useful purpose and may help to demolish some of the stanchly conservative theories still held in some quarters by those who prefer to take Hebrew conceptions as a basis of their cosmology however irreconcilable ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... military despotism. The institutions which had acted as restraints on the power of preceding sovereigns were superseded or abolished; the legislative, as well as the executive authority, fell into the grasp of the same individual; and the best rights of the people were made to depend on the mere pleasure of an adventurer, who, under the mask of dissimulation, had seized, and by the power of the sword retained, the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... up the frigate's lofty side without let or hindrance; and when I sprang, sword in hand, down upon her deck, I was met by a mere lad, his beardless face deadly pale, his head bound up in a blood-sodden bandage, and his right arm hanging helpless—and broken—by his side. With his left hand he tendered to me his sword, in silence, and then, turning away, burst ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... turn aside to pray—so much so that in Central Asia we read of the police driving the backward worshiper by the lash to discharge the duty. Thus, with the mass of Mussulmans, the obligation becomes a mere formal ceremony, and one sees it performed anywhere and every-where by the whole people, like any social custom, as a matter of course. No doubt there are exceptions; but with the multitude it does not involve ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... this announcement. He draws in his horns at once, and scowls suspiciously at Doyle under a vanishing mark of goodfellowship: cringing a little, too, in mere nerveless fear ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... far as I was concerned. It amounted to nothing. I did not know what I was doing. I did not think of the meaning the words might bear. It was to me a mere form, done because you wished it, and because it was said to be proper; the right thing to do; I attached no weight to it, and lived just the same after as before. Except that for a few days I went under a little feeling of constraint, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... Eugene perceived with unavailing regret. He was powerless to prevent it, for, as the youngest of the field-marshals, his duty was restricted to the mere execution of the orders of his superiors. The war dwindled down to an insignificant though bloody contest with the mountaineers of Savoy and the Italian peasantry, and things continued in this state until the allies of the emperor manifested their discontent, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... field. I would not have deserted my countrywoman anyhow, but indeed I had no desires in that direction. None of us like mediocrity, but we all reverence perfection. This girl's music was perfection in its way; it was the worst music that had ever been achieved on our planet by a mere ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... came to close his work at Iowa City had something of an awakening effect in it. The mere motion of the train brought back again in intensified form the feelings he had experienced on the day he left Rock River. Life was really before him at last. His studies were ended, and he was prepared ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... was becoming greater and greater in every direction,— mightier and mightier every day. He was learning to despise mere lords, and to feel that he might almost domineer over a duke. In truth he did recognize it as a fact that he must either domineer over dukes, or else go to the wall. It can hardly be said of him that he had intended to play so high a game, but the game that he had intended to ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... time, when I allow a little ripple to flow a little way and make a little noise, and then return to the usual attitude towards non-sympathizers; and, like David, keep silence and refrain even from good words, though it is pain and grief to me, and my heart is hot within me. I am speaking of the mere acquaintance non-sympathizers, or those known to be too bitter to bear difference of opinion; but don't be afraid, or do be afraid, as you may put it, and be prepared for total removal of the flood-gates when ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... along, in Poland especially, amid what circumambient deluges of maledictory outcries, and mendacious shriekeries from an ill-informed Public, is not now worth mentioning. Mere distracted rumors of the Pamphleteer and Newspaper kind: which, after hunting them a long time, through dense and rare, end mostly in zero, and angry darkness of some poor human brain,—or even testify in favor ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Marcia, ran out to greet him, with his two sons, but he did not look up, and received their caresses as one beneath their notice, as a mere slave, and he continued, in spite of all entreaty, to remain outside the city, and would not even go to the little farm he had loved ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... understanding but the Spirit. The Common Prayer Book will not do it, neither can any man expect that it should be instrumental that way, it being none of God's ordinances; but a thing since the Scriptures were written, patched together one piece at one time, and another at another; a mere human invention and institution, which God is so far from owning of, that he expressly forbids it, with any other such like, and that by manifold sayings in his most holy and blessed Word. (See Mark 7:7,8, and Col 2:16-23; Deut 12:30-32; Prov 30:6; Deut 4:2; Rev 22:18). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... welcome had been subdued into mere gladness, there was a discreet tap at the door, and the respectable maid came in with a tray of sherry-glasses and cake. Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman looked at each other brimming over with smiles. It was the same kind of cake, and might have been ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... with love, fights his battle in joy and confidence; he withstands many as easily as one, and has very little need of fortune's aid. Those whom he vanquishes yield joyfully, not through failure, but through increase in their powers; all these consequences follow so plainly from the mere definitions of love and understanding, that I have no need to ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... to save her sister's life by an act of perjury, and undertaking a pilgrimage to London to obtain her pardon, are both represented as true by my fair and obliging correspondent; and they led me to consider the possibility of rendering a fictitious personage interesting by mere dignity of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted by unpretending good sense and temper, without any of the beauty, grace, talent, accomplishment, and wit, to which a heroine of romance is supposed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... is of course mere wisdom after the event. We certainly did not believe ourselves preparing for a forlorn hope and we went into the second battle in perfect confidence that we should be bivouacked among the Gaza olive trees at ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... subject for ridicule. Nor does he confine this benefit of clergy to the ministers of the Established Church. He extends the privilege to Catholic priests, and, what in him is more surprising, to Dissenting preachers. This, however, is a mere trifle. Imaums, Brahmins, priests of Jupiter, priests of Baal, are all to be held sacred. Dryden is blamed for making the Mufti in Don Sebastian talk nonsense. Lee is called to a severe account for his incivility to Tiresias. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the Mysteries these doctrines are expounded, "the progression from, and the regression of all things to, the One, and the entire domination of the One,"[15] and, further, these different Beings were evoked, and appeared, sometimes to teach, sometimes, by Their mere presence, to elevate and purify. "The Gods," says Iamblichus, "being benevolent and propitious, impart their light to theurgists in unenvying abundance, calling upwards their souls to themselves, procuring them a union with themselves, and accustoming them, while they ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... country, what does she? You have chosen a new President from a Slave State, representative of the Mexican war. But he seems to be honest, a man that can be esteemed, and is one really known to the people, which is a step upward, after having sunk last time to choosing a mere tool ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... had a mere handful of brave and expert warriors, he would not hesitate to fall upon those savage and barbarous characters, and either destroy them to the last one, or let his band suffer a like fate," he murmured ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... telling you things that would have made you walk upon humanity as upon a carpet. But when I did talk to you guardedly of Parisian civilization, when I told you in the disguise of fiction some of the actual adventures of my youth, you regarded them as mere romance and would not see their bearing. When I told you that history of a lawyer at the galleys branded for forgery, who committed the crime to give his wife, adored like yours, an income of thirty thousand francs, and whom his wife denounced ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... man, seeing him, upbraided him, saying that his diction was very much like that of Pericles, and that he was wanting to himself through cowardice and meanness of spirit, neither bearing up with courage against popular outcry, nor fitting his body for action, but suffering it to languish through mere sloth and negligence. ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... four, with the head man, form what is called a punchayiet, or council of five, in fact, a jury. They examine the witnesses, and each party to the suit conducts his own case. The whole village not unfrequently attends to hear what goes on. In a mere caste or private quarrel, only the friends of the parties will attend. Every case is tried in public, and all the inhabitants of the village can hear the proceedings if they wish. Respectable inhabitants can remark on the proceedings, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... how they sail along!' said the Darning-needle. 'They don't know what is underneath them! Here I am sticking fast! There goes a shaving thinking of nothing in the world but of itself, a mere chip! There goes a straw—well, how it does twist and twirl, to be sure! Don't think so much about yourself, or you will be knocked against a stone. There floats a bit of newspaper. What is written on it ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... sarcastically introduced rather as the strange doctrine of a new religion, than the established tenet of a faith universally prevalent. The argument, adopted from Solanus, concerning the formula of the procession of the Holy Ghost, is utterly worthless, as it is a mere quotation in the words of the Gospel of St. John, xv. 26. The only argument of any value is the historic one, from the allusion to the recent violation of many virgins in the Island of Crete. But neither is the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... I told Mrs. Thrale, "You have so little anxiety about truth, that you never tax your memory with the exact thing[1224]." Now what is the use of the memory to truth, if one is careless of exactness? Lord Hailes's Annals of Scotland are very exact; but they contain mere dry particulars[1225]. They are to be considered as a Dictionary. You know such things are there; and may be looked at when you please. Robertson paints; but the misfortune is, you are sure he does not know the ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... priests and people. But the chief advantage which the system will derive from Dr. Russell's book will spring, it seems to us, from his attempt—a successful one it must be confessed—to prove that homoeopathy is a development, and not a mere reaction; that it has its roots far down in the history of science. The first mention of it in the book, however, is made for the purpose of disavowing the claim, advanced by many homoeopathists, to Hippocrates as ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... came out that he had been south with the army; and then Mr. Geoffrey asked questions of him, and they got upon Reconstruction business, and comparing facts and exchanging conclusions, quite as if one was not a mere youth with only his eyes and his brains and his conscience to help him in his first grapple with the world in the tangle and crisis at which he found it, and the other a grave, practiced, keen-judging man, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... said; 'those among my audience who have read any history will be aware that no mere commoner can expect to conquer a dragon. We must give our would-be Deliverer every chance. So I will make him a knight.' He tapped Philip lightly on the shoulder and said, ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... mere trick," said Burley, "an insult over our disappointment, intended to aggravate and embitter ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott |
