"Mess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... courses was a most enjoyable recreation in those fine September days of 1863. A gallop twenty miles up the valley to where Minty kept watch and ward upon our flank with his trusty horsemen; a dinner at that hospitable mess-table, furnished maybe with a pig which had strayed from its home not wholly through natural perversity; and then a lively ride back in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... clean. Just as the foods and drinks of a good dinner, if mixed up together on a dish, would produce a filthy mess, so conversely, if we could separate any form of dirt into the pure solid, liquid and volatile chemical compounds of which it is composed, into pretty crystals, liquids and gases, exhibited in the scientific manner on spotless watch-glasses and in thrice-washed test-tubes,—we ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... me! Isn't nine almost as bad as ten? There I was, just putting my bread in the oven," went on Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, "and I was so startled that I dropped it, and now the dough is all over the kitchen floor. I never saw such a mess." ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... got us in a pretty mess! It so happened I was looking for a letter myself," he snapped, as he jerked himself to his feet. "See here, Teddy, where did that rascally little dog go to? Come, let's go find Rover," he finished, stooping and lifting the small boy to his shoulder. The next ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... his merry eyes twinkling against his deep space tan. "It's mighty good to see you boys. Come on in the house. I got a mess of fatfish just pulled out of the stream and some of the most delicious biscuits you ever had in ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... the old shrivelled cigarette-rolling apes, and the dark-eyed girls, and sifted with these the loungers of our own race, boots, overalls, pistols, hotel clerks, express agents, freight hands, waitresses, red-shirts, soldiers from Lowell Barracks, and officers, and in this mass and mess of color and dust and staring, Bishop Meakum, in his yellow duster, by the door of the Hotel San Xavier. But his stare was not, I think now, quite of the same idleness with the rest. He gave me a short nod, yet not unfriendly, as I passed by him to ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... answered Sam. "It's another brake, one that Dick heaved overboard." And he pointed to the ropes and hooks. One hook, the biggest, had caught in a rock lining the gully, and the ropes were in a mess around the wheels and the ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... whether red cloth and epaulets have never had an influence of that sort. Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers, but, dressed in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... dishes; dishes cooked without salt and pleasing to the Polynesian palate. Coming out upon his balcony of a morning he would find swinging from a cross-beam a basket made of the green palm leaves and containing a chicken or a fish prepared according to the primitive native recipe, or perhaps a mess of wild greens baked on hot stones; or maybe baked green bananas or taro or yams or hard ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... up to think that the Colonel is dead. He was good all the way through. And I wonder what will become of that little lame boy of his now? They'll make a Tlahuico of him, I suppose. By Jove! what a mess we've made of this whole business from ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... reason? against the Sacred Scriptures?[93] For my part I can find nothing written in the Holy Bible which is contrary thereto. But if the Will of God had been so, would you say that He could not have done it? Oh for grace' sake do not make a mess of your wits in such vain thoughts. For I tell you that nothing is impossible ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... "Bill" (three out of the five companions seemed to have been usually called "Bill"), "Bill, your boots are in a mess." ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... meal that remained. One part she put aside for the morning, and of the other she made for her brothers' supper some thin gruel, instead of their usual hearty porridge. The hungry little lads eyed with undisguised discontent the not very savoury mess; but, fortunately, the table was laid in the corner of the room most distant from their mother's bed, and their murmurs were unheard ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... death; he would renounce with pleasure that shadow of a life in a small stone box, tormented by physical pain and the fear of men's ferocity. His stomach, weakened by all these privations, refused for many days, with horrible nausea, to receive the bitter bread and the coppery mess. His want of exercise, the want of air, and the bad and scanty nourishment had made him fall into a mortal anaemia; he coughed continually, suffering great oppression on his chest. The knowledge he had acquired ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... killed the robins? Oh, yes! oh, yes! I would get the cat now into a mess! Who was it put An old stocking-foot, Tied up with strings And such shabby things, On to the end of a sharp, slender pole, Dipped it in oil and set fire to the whole, And burnt all the way from ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... empty parade ground, where the cinder piles showed purple with evening. On the wind that smelt of barracks and disinfectant there was a faint greasiness of food cooking. At the other side of the wide field long lines of men shuffled slowly into the narrow wooden shanty that was the mess hall. Chins down, chests out, legs twitching and tired from the afternoon's drilling, the company stood at attention. Each man stared straight in front of him, some vacantly with resignation, some trying to amuse themselves by noting minutely every object in ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... pesos and our expenses to Espana. Esteves has your Grace's new doublet; and your Grace can get it [from him]. Francisco Cachata owes [me] three pesos and Bartolo two—all to be used in saying masses for my brother. Juan de Palacios owes me four pesos, which he may spend in his mess; and my silver spoon and mirror. Will your Grace get them? and they are to be used in saying masses for my brother. Will your Grace tell him that if he shall bring any cloth, he must do his best for his soul. The three ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... be done? No one was to be relied upon but the Europeans, and not all even of them. The black escort, emancipated slaves, would have run away at the first shot; except only Acting-Corporal Khayr. And when I told the officers assembled at mess that we should march back early next morning, the general joy showed how little they relished the prospect of an advance. Then came out in mass the details—many doubtless apocryphal—which should have been reported ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... slang of the male, until, tiring of this foolishness, they would end up by flinging the food at the pictures on the walls, the usual pellet being softened bread and the favourite target the noses in the family portraits, which, hit and covered with a sprawling mess, looked so ridiculous as to provoke ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... his Lordship, "impossible; you know I never change my mind. What! yield up my freedom for a mess of beef and tongue, or even a brace ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... never be the beauty her sister was; but perhaps that's not to be deplored. Theresa made a great mess of it." ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... subject on the occasion of Sir E. Wilmot's volume on my 'Acts and Bills;' and Bellenden Ker had undertaken it, and was, as a law reformer and as, under Cranworth, in office as consolidation commissioner, certainly well qualified to do the article. But he made such a mess of it; in fact, treating Eldon, Ellenborough, &c., and other obstacles to law reform not introductory, but, as I understand, making a whole article upon that. The consequence has been that the whole has failed, and this most valuable opportunity been ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... the land, and he interlards his own grease among to help the drippings. Cholerick he is not by nature so much as his art, and it is a shrewd temptation that the chopping-knife is so near. His weapons, ofter offensive, are a mess of hot broth and scalding water, and woe be to him that comes in his way. In the kitchen he will domineer and rule the roast in spight of his master, and curses in the very dialect of his calling. His labour is meer blustering ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... the signal came for the officers to seat themselves. Then, after orders had been given to the attentive Filipino boys, who served as mess attendants, a buzz of conversation ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... by reconciling rent! And will they not repay the treasures lent? No: down with everything, and up with rent! Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent, 630 Being, end, aim, religion—rent—rent—rent! Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau! for a mess; Thou shouldst have gotten more, or eaten less; Now thou hast swilled thy pottage, thy demands Are idle; Israel says the bargain stands. Such, landlords! was your appetite for war, And gorged with blood, you grumble ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... most opulent and powerful spirits ever seen on earth have scarcely done more than indicate what kind of birthrights they bartered away for a mess of pottage. Coleridge, for example, ceased to write poetry after thirty because, by dissipating his overplus of life, he had too grievously ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... the major continued his ride, and the Irishman duly followed the old sow to—a turn in the road, when he 'obeyed orders,' and left the lame pig 'at home,' where that night at least one mess had roast pig with 'ubi beans ibi ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... nor I alluded to the sound we had heard the night before; he boiled water and cleaned up the mess-kit, and I pottered about among the rocks for another ptarmigan. Wearying of this, presently, I returned to the mules and William, and ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... destroyed the beauty of the plate. I am not at all surprised at such a paper having consumed much time. I am rejoiced that I passed over the whole subject in the 'Origin,' for I should have made a precious mess of it. You have most clearly stated and solved a wonderful problem. No doubt with most people this will be the cream of the paper; but I am not sure that all your facts and reasonings on variation, and on the segregation of complete and semi-complete species, is not really ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... Travers and d'Alcacer heard Lingard call aloud for Jorgenson. Instantly the familiar shadow stood at Lingard's elbow and listened in detached silence. Only at the end of the tale it marvelled audibly: "Here's a mess for you if you like." But really nothing in the world could astonish or startle old Jorgenson. He turned away muttering in his moustache. Lingard remained with his chin in his hand and Jaffir's last words took gradual possession of his mind. Then brusquely ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... did all the cooking. He loved to cook. Each day he jumbled all the mixable portions of the food together, and, in a big tin wash-boiler which he had rescued from "the dump" outside of town, he stewed up quite a palatable mess which we called "slum" or "slumgullion," or, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... merchant ships that are rated A1 for insurance. "First-rate," on the other hand, comes from the Navy, and means ships of the largest size and strongest build, like the super-dreadnoughts of to-day. If you make a mess of things people say you are "on the wrong tack," may "get taken aback," and find yourself "on your beam ends" or, worse still, "on the rocks." So you had better remember that "if you won't be ruled by the rudder you are sure to be ruled by the rock." If you do not "know the ropes" you ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... more fascinated in my life. I never dreamt you had such stuff in you, Bunny! No, I'm hanged if I let you go now. And you'd better not try that game again, for you won't catch me stand and look on a second time. We must think of some way out of the mess. I had no idea you were a chap of that sort! There, let me ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... this morning? He looked as if he'd been gagged. I went into his office for something in a hurry afterwards and he was head over ears in Railway Time Tables. He jumped as if he'd been caught poaching. It's my belief he means to skip across the border. It's the only way for him to get out of the mess, unless he takes a ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... here 200 years ago, as an Obelisk planted by my Papa on the wrong site intimates. Poor Carlyle got into sad error from that deluding Obelisk: which Liston used to call (in this case with truth) an Obstacle. I am afraid Carlyle will make a mad mess of Cromwell and his Times: what a poor figure Fairfax will cut! I am very tired of these heroics; and I can worship no man who has but a square inch of brains more than myself. I think there is but one Hero: and that is ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... grumbling now because all you get in the line of vegetables is spuds, and beans, and tomatoes and beans, and spuds, and spuds, and beans, and beans, and spuds and beans, and beans, and beans, and beans, and beans, and beans and—what was that other vegetable you gave us last night, Mess-Sergeant?—oh, yes, beans; all of them canned, with now and then, on Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, Yom Kippur and Hallowe'en, a few grains of canned corn. If you want fresh vegetables, therefore, it's up to you to grow them. Unfortunate people ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... dainty teller fretted in his cage, like a rare species of wild animal, the manager dug Nelson out of his mess and tried to make light of ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... that day, among the knights and barons, and the abbots and the warriors, Adam sat on the dais near the earl, and Sibyll at "the mess" of the ladies of the Duchess of Clarence. And ere the feast broke up, Warwick thus addressed ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... O'Shaughnessy returned, and early one morning we started with a wagon and a bulging mess-box for Zebbie's home. We were going a new and longer route in order to take the wagon. Dandelions spread a carpet of gold. Larkspur grew waist-high with its long spikes of blue. The service-bushes and the wild ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... however, the stranger's feet and hands were washed by a black slave in Eastern fashion; and then all, as before, sat on mats or cushions round the central bowl, each being furnished with a spoon and thin flat soft piece of bread to dip into the mess of stewed kid, flakes of which might be extracted with ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... certain general duties in which all hands are engaged, and in which each has a number. Thus a man has one number at mess, another at quarters, and another at divisions. Discipline is everything on board a man-of-war. Without it such a mass of people could not possibly be moved together, and all would be confusion and ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... the ambassador. "It can't be too bad a mess while a woman is being really practical. I've checked your story. Allowing for differences of viewpoint, it agrees with the official version. I've ruled that you are a political refugee, and so entitled to sanctuary in ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... interest in the Dardanelles—but the Empire never. The younger men have their eyes upon it. And what a contrast the Laodicean atmosphere of G.H.Q., and the frankness of an Australian and New Zealand mess! ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... and made a gesture which she understood. She took his hand, and led him from the forest to her cave. She struck fire from flint into a heap of fagots beneath a swinging pot. In a little time she set before him a savoury mess of birds. He ate of it ravenously. Dorthe watched him with deep curiosity. She had never seen hunger before. She offered him a gourd of water, and he drank thirstily. When he raised his face his cheeks ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... of remark which, as you go the rounds of the mess tables, you have to pretend you have not heard: "The officer wants to know if you have all got plenty of potatoes. Every man stand up and say 'I have';" and, to demonstrate the camaraderie which exists in the hard circumstances of military ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... shoulders. "A nice mess you've got me into," he complained. "Why didn't you tell me you knew the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... genuine kindness and hospitality and, he might add, so much refinement and gentlemanly feeling. Speaking for himself, he had never expected, considering his being a total stranger, to be welcomed so cordially and entertained so handsomely, more particularly at the mess of her Majesty's goldfields officials, whose attention on this occasion they might be assured he would never forget. He would repeat, the events of this particular day would never be effaced from ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... and dirty, and let sewers run into the sea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields like thrifty reasonable souls; or throw herrings' heads and dead dog-fish, or any other refuse, into the water; or in any way make a mess upon the clean shore—there the water-babies will not come, sometimes not for hundreds of years (for they cannot abide anything smelly or foul), but leave the sea-anemones and the crabs to clear away everything, till the good tidy sea has covered up all the dirt in soft ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... United States. In this connection Fenimore Cooper, just before Harrison's inauguration as President, uncovered a long forgotten bit of romance which he related confidentially in a letter to his old mess-mate Commodore Shubrick as a "great political discovery." "Miss Anne Cooper was lately in Philadelphia,"—the letter is dated February 28, 1841,—"where she met Mr. Thomas Biddle, who asked if our family were not Harrison men. The reason of so singular a question was ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... keep me out of this mess. I had thought, by outward conforming, and divers rich gifts to the priest, and so forth— 'Tis hard a man cannot be at peace ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... saved the life of his subject, and now he turned his attention toward insuring his own safety. Inextricably entangled in the mess to which he was clinging were numerous other landing hooks such as he had attached to the warrior's harness, and with one of these he sought to secure himself until the storm should abate sufficiently to permit him to climb to the deck, but even as he reached ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... armed with rifles, are hiding away in corners so that they shall not be drafted away to the outer defences. Everywhere a contemptible spirit is being displayed, because a feeling prevails that there are no responsible chiefs in whom absolute trust can be placed. A pleasant mess in all truth. It is now everyone for himself and nobody looking after ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... supercilious height the petty quarreling of man. In fifteen minutes, however, the snarl cleared itself up, and it was the camels who first managed to slither by, after which each vehicle unwound itself from the mess and passed on. ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... and "swap yarns" for an hour. There were only three musical instruments in the length and breadth of the Bad Lands, the Langs' piano, a violin which "Fiddling Joe" played at the dances over Bill Williams's saloon, and Howard Eaton's banjo. The banjo traveled in state in the mess-wagon of the "Custer Trail," and hour on hour, about the camp-fire on the round-up, Eaton would play to the dreamy delight of the weary men. The leading spirit of those evenings was Bill Dantz, who knew a hundred songs by ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... and then ambled over to the first chair and slipped into the high seat. His reflection in the mirror, strangely gray in the dim light, made him groan. His clothes were a mess, and he needed a shave. If only ...
— Dream Town • Henry Slesar
... where several British and one American—an officer—sat during another ocean voyage between Liverpool and Halifax in June, 1919, the officer expressed satisfaction to be getting home again. He had gone over, he said, to "clean up the mess the British ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... to drop down dead suddenly," he would say with the air of a philosopher, who had thought it all out. "I shouldn't care to lie up in bed and mess about with medicine and doctors. To make a long job of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... delighted with his soft mud walls and with the clay floor, which soon looked like nothing but a big mud pie. But that was what Browny enjoyed, and he was as happy as possible, rolling about all day and making himself in such a mess. One day, as he was lying half asleep in the mud, he heard a soft knock at his door, ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... once when the Germans were there. I asked to go along, but they wouldn't let me. After that Bill and Gabe took some kind of a message down to Timminsport for them. It was on their way back from the town that they stopped and made a mess of things at your Lodge. They were laughing and joking about it when they got back, and that is how I ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... a Summer morning, I being then but newly come home from the Farmers' College, in the ancient town of Cambridge, that our whole household was gathered together in our parlour. Mother sat by the head of the great table, ladling out a savoury mess of porridge, not rashly, as the custom of some is, but carefully, like a prudent housewife, guarding her own. And by her side sat MOLLY and BETTY, her daughters, and next to them the maids, and they that pertained to the work of the house. First came old POLLY THISTLEDEW, gaunt of face, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... hall of council with the Indians. In the other range, precisely similar in construction, were quartered Ensign Ronayne and the surgeon Von Vottenberg, who each, however occupied but one apartment. The central and largest serving as their mess-room. The other half of the building was vacant, or rather had been so, until the doctor obtained the permission of the commanding officer to use it as a temporary surgery—the hospital being a distinct edifice between the two block-houses. These latter, capacious for ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... in the neighborhood, we finally arrived at Medua. Almost blocked off by the sand bars, the little harbor was further encumbered by a dozen wrecks, boats which the Austrians had sunk. The question was where to pass through this mess, on the top of the water, with masts and spars pointing every way. After having rounded the line of mines and the Brindisi, an Italian vessel that had struck a mine some days before, we made the port. Ten houses and a wretched wharf on worm-eaten piling at the end of a funnel of mountains with ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... I'm made of such soft material the slightest breeze will mess me all up. I'm not so like that as I evidently appear; and if it's true that we're afraid other people will do the things we'd be most likely to do ourselves, it seems to me that I ought to be the one ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... open-hearted towards the merits of the man, with whom he was far too closely associated on week-days not to feel affection for him; while, on the other hand, Gibbie made neither head nor tail of his sermons, not having been instructed in the theological mess that goes with so many for a theriac of the very essentials of religion; and therefore, for anything he knew, they might be very wise and good. At first he took refuge from the sermon in his New Testament; ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... that lived on a tree by a great city in the East thought that the day dawned because of his cawing. One day he said to himself, "How important I am! But for my care, I confess, the world would get into a mess." ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... boil the young plants declare these "greens" are as good as spinach. What sacrilege to reduce crisp, glossy, beautiful leaves like these to a slimy mess in a pot! The tender buds, often used in white sauce as a substitute for capers, probably do not give it the same piquancy where piquancy is surely most needed - on boiled mutton, said to be Queen Victoria's favorite dish. Hawked about the streets in tight bunches, the marsh-marigold blossoms ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... imagine a dirtier, nastier job than a spell of coal-shifting on board. It is a pity that such a useful thing as coal should be so black! What we are doing now is only hoisting it from the hold and filling the bunkers with it; but every man on board must help, and everything is in a mess. So many men must stand on the coal-heap in the hold and fill the buckets, and so many hoist them. Jacobsen is specially good at this last job; his strong arms pull up bucket after bucket as if they were as many boxes of matches. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... for their country, involved in potential bondage to Russia since the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi (1833), and recently afflicted by Ibrahim Pasha's victory at Nizib; and they looked to Great Britain to get them out of the Syrian mess. Partly also Abdul Mejid had been influenced by enthusiasts, who set more store by ideas or the phrases in which they were expressed, than by the evidence of facts. There were then, as since, 'young men in a hurry' among the more Europeanized Osmanlis. The net result of the sultan's precipitancy ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... the west, now, and rising fast. I hope that your spirit of prophecy still speaks smooth things, for, upon my word, I believe we are both of us in a worse mess than ever." ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... that some kindhearted girl Would pity on me take, And extricate me from the mess I'm in. The angel-how I'd bless her, li this her home she'd make, In my little old sod shanty ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... true, your reverence, were not some throats so much wider than others. You will always see that one porker half empties the trough before others have moistened their snouts in the mess." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... out, feeling that he had made a mess of things. He gave Jake credit for his cleverness, quite appreciating the undying hate that prompted it. But the thing that was most prominent in his thoughts was the display the blind man had given him. He smiled when he thought of Jake's boasted threats to ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... Sally say she gwine take dat ar Darkess[87] nigger en put 'er in my place. An' a mighty nice mess Darkess gwine ter make un it! Much she know 'bout waitin' on w'ite folks! Many's en many's de time Miss Sally'll set down in 'er rockin'-cheer en wish fer 'Tildy—many's ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... o'clock the cooking was done and every pot and pan washed and put in its place. Helen said that was the rule in domestic science school, so although they were both tired with their labors and Rosanna wished in her heart that she could tell Minnie to clean up as she usually did whenever a mess was made, they stuck to their task and it did not take very long to finish the work and make the kitchen all spick ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... said Skippy, gulping down his disappointment. He tripped against the foot-scraper and made a mess of opening the door for her. He wanted above all things in the world to follow her in and be permitted just for a few more wonderful minutes to sit and gaze at her loveliness. But to admit this was impossible. Whatever happened, she must never suspect, ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... Graham into the music-room. A wave of contempt was sweeping over her, as she reviewed the dinner, its gilding, its gluttony, and its unspeakable dulness, and she felt that she had sold her birthright of self-respect for a mess of pottage. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... know I have to have hay right along. I've a standing order for at least half a load of hay every trip. These settlers are buying it fast. I have only ten bales on hand. Next fellow that comes along will probably want all ten of them. A nice mess! What's the matter with those Ikes over there ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... and to understand its workings. And many of us have in our impatient, hasty investigation, self-analytically taken our mental machines all to pieces and are trying effortfully to put them together again. Some of us have made a pretty bad mess of it, for we tore out the screws and pulled apart the adjustments so hastily and carelessly that we cannot now find how they fit. And millions of other machines are working wrong because the engineers do not know how to keep them ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... tribes to be met with, the adventurous spirit and dauntless courage of Master Perkins was not to be balked. Volunteering for every duty, no matter how dangerous, hardly a boat ever left the ship that he was not in it. The life of the mess through his unfailing good humor and exuberant flow of spirits, he was the soul of every expedition, whether of service or pleasure; and before the cruise of some twenty-two months was up, he came to know almost every prominent ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... written it down till afterwards, and then by mistake had recorded the year in which he wrote, refusing to change it, although I pointed out the error, because, he said, there was no room, and that it would make a mess in ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... on with his canoe building. He melted together in a pot, resin and pitch. The proportion he determined by experiment, for the mixture had to be neither hard enough to crack nor soft enough to melt in the sun. Then he daubed the mess over all the seams. Wallace superintended the operation for a ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... head-quarters. A great tallow-chandler's son got into the regiment, and committed some heresy at mess.' ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... no objection to my desk being searched," said I, feeling a good deal concerned, however, at the thought of the mess that ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... fathers, the precious life-truths that so often fell from your lips. Not a word that you ever said about the sacredness of marriage has been forgotten. I believe with you that it is a little less than crime to marry when no love exists—that she who does so, sells her heart's birthright for some mess of pottage, sinks down from the pure level of noble womanhood, and traffics away her person, is henceforth meaner in quality if ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... Shanks; "but the matter here is his neck, and that makes a mighty difference, let me tell you. Now listen to me, John, and don't interrupt me till I've done; for be sure that we have got into a very unpleasant mess, which we may have some difficulty in getting out of. You sent over Tom Cutter, to see if he could not persuade young Scantling, Lord Selby's gamekeeper, to remember something about the marriage, when he was with his old father the sexton. Now, how he and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... a mess of young squirrels?" Tom asked, as he sat down in a hickory rocking chair. Of late he had become interested in Wash Sanders, and had resented the neighbors' loss ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... who was small and curly-haired—and incidentally a captain, with a little row of medal ribbons. "Jolliest letters ever. We passed a vote of thanks to you in the mess, Miss Tommy, after old Bob here had gone. Some one was to write and tell him about it, but I don't believe anyone ever did. I say, you must have had a cheery time—all the funny things that ever happened seemed to come ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... already seen, in seeing he knew hot and terrible anger. Out of the filthy mess in which the snake-devils wallowed, something had rolled, perhaps thrown about in play by the unspeakable offspring. A skull, dried scraps of fur and flesh still clinging to it, stared hollow-eyed up at them. At least one merman ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... would the less do so because his own people think him all the finer for it, as the farmer's wife would probably think her daughter. Dr. Woltmann, for instance, is enthusiastic in praise of the splendid architecture in the background of his Annunciation. A fine mess it must have made in the minds of simple German maidens, in their notion of the Virgin at home! I cannot show you this Annunciation; but I have under my hand one of Holbein's Bible cuts, of the deepest seriousness and import—his illustration of the Canticles, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... down. They all ate breakfast in the mess house, the cook being adjured to "spread it on for all he was worth"—which he did. Certainly no one left the mess house hungry. During the meal Lemuel Train made a speech on behalf of himself and the other owners who had enjoyed Hollis's ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... on these walls to-night, if I'm to be let have a say in the business!" said Mrs. Moloney. "Sich trash and nonsense! making mess and trouble for them that has plenty to do without that! And as for the Crib, let it stop ...
— Candle and Crib • K. F. Purdon
... but be gentle and persuade him that its fer his good.' Child, he sho did act funny when I told him I wanted to treat his side. I had ter tell him I wuz carrying out doctors orders so he could get well. He reared and fussed and said he didn't want that mess on him. I told him the doctor says you do very well till you go ter the horse lot then you go blind and you can't see. He looked at me. 'Sho nuff, Ma, he said, 'that sho is the trufe. I have ter always call one of the chillun when I go there ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... at the military school he had chosen for himself had been so unsatisfactory that his father had been advised that he would not be received for another year. It was now Mrs. Bassett's turn to cavil at her husband for the sad mess he had made of the boy's education. She would never have sent Blackford to a military school if it had been her affair; she arraigned her husband for having encouraged the boy in his dreams ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... mother, after Phillida had gone to the parlor. "He'll stay for hours, I suppose, and I never can get these things put away alone, and we won't get you to bed before midnight. He ought to remember that you're not strong. But it's just like a man in love to come when you're in a mess, and ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... drums struck up, and away went the columns of each company, to the front of the parade ground. Then they wheeled to the right, the fifers started up a lively air, and the cadets marched around the hall three times, and at last into the door nearest to the mess-hall ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... the Count d'Artois, the genius of the family. They already tell as many bon-mots of the latter as of Henri Quatre and Louis Quatorze. He is very fat, and the most like his grandfather of all the children. You may imagine this royal mess did not occupy us long: thence to the chapel, where a first row in the balconies was kept for us. Madame du Barri arrived over against us below, without rouge, without powder, and indeed sans avoir fait sa toilette; an odd appearance, as she was so conspicuous, close to the altar, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... render a monkey, or a parrot, a valuable resource; and between what I picked up, and what I was taught by the monks of the Propaganda, my acquirements soon became stupendous. Always following my kind master from the refectory to the church, assisting at mess or at mass, being near him in the seclusion of the oratory, and in the festivities, he frequently held with his more confidential friends; I had loaded my astonishing memory with scraps of theology and of fun. I could ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... take a lady with you to the play. It will please her, whatever the bother to you. Besides, you will then be talked to. If you make a mess of it in trying to unravel the plot, she will essentially aid you in that direction. Nothing like a woman for a plot—especially if you desire to plunge ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... done here, and a hundred more that can only be done properly at my office in Holborn. Come to think of it—we had better see to that first of all,' he went on, unlocking the door. 'Get hold of Powl, and see. And be quick back, and clear me up this mess.' ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be glad to hear of your being fitted with a good servant. Most of the Irish of that class are scapegraces—drink, steal, and lie like the devil. If you could pick up a canny Scot it would be well. Let me know about your mess. To drink hard is none of your habits, but even drinking what is called a certain quantity every day hurts the stomach, and by hereditary descent yours is delicate. I believe the poor Duke of Buccleuch laid the foundation of that ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... was intended for this servant-girl, and which for that. Had the messenger had his wits about him, well and good; but had he been at all stupid he wouldn't have been able to remember so much as the names of the girls! He would have made an awful mess of it, and talked a lot of nonsense. So instead of being of any use he would have even muddled, hickledy-pickledy, your things. Had a female servant been despatched, it would have been all right. But as it happened, a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of concurrence when he looked around at the rest; and the cook, seeing no help for it, made a valiant attempt to eat a little of the greasy mess. Then he revolted from it and ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... or die at once!" We are forced to give, for else the old man tramples on us and makes us spew forth all our body contains. There must be an end to it, friend. Let us see! what can be done? Who will get us out of this mess? ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... into their carts. Ah! Marius! Ah! you blackguard! to go and vociferate on the public place! to discuss, to debate, to take measures! They call that measures, just God! Disorder humbles itself and becomes silly. I have seen chaos, I now see a mess. Students deliberating on the National Guard,—such a thing could not be seen among the Ogibewas nor the Cadodaches! Savages who go naked, with their noddles dressed like a shuttlecock, with a club in their paws, are less of brutes than those bachelors of arts! The ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... too late. Nyoda had stumbled over the pile of things on the floor, and in falling sent the elements of the Rain Jinx flying in all directions. Hinpoha flew to light the light and Sahwah picked Nyoda up out of the mess and set her in a chair, while the rest of us collected the scattered articles and tidied up the room, and Sahwah painted in lurid colors to Nyoda the dire consequences of her crime, and made her give her famous "Wimmen Sufferage" speech as an ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... the battalion. But there came a day when S. Cohn seized those letters and read them first. He began to speak of his boy at the war—nay, to read the letters to enthralled groups in the synagogue lobby—groups that swallowed without reproach the tripha meat cooked in Simon's mess-tin. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... heartless, wicked thing!" cried Hortense. "How can you be so cruel? I couldn't wait upon myself. I want my broth. And I want my hair done. And you can see yourself how the room is all in a mess. And——" ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... put away that mess! The Ellenboroughs are directly opposite, watching everything you do. Eat that omelet, or anything respectable, unless you want ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... over. But sometimes I wonder if we were worth saving. It all seems such a mess, doesn't it?" She glanced out. They were drawing up before the house, and she looked ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... precise place at which to begin this narrative. There are, as it were, several points d'appui. One might describe the outward voyage, in a troopship packed to three or four times its normal peace-time capacity; where men slept on the floors, on mess-tables, and in hammocks so closely slung that once you were in it was literally impossible to get out until the whole row was ready to move; and where we were given food (!) cooked and served under conditions so revolting as to turn the stomach at the bare ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... circumstance of war. The soldiers had a wonderful way of concealing their sufferings; they never groaned or murmured, and, shot down one day, were perfectly ready to take the field again on the next, and so when the solid lead captain or die mounted officer who took on and off his horse was "put out of mess" by a well-directed pea, the knowledge that they would reappear ready to fight again another day considerably lessened one's grief at the sight of their fall. Perhaps, after all, lead is a more natural "food for powder" than flesh and blood, and so the only time tears were ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... of a celebrated and extremely pugnacious Englishman who had got the newspapers down on him two or three years ago for a wild interview he had given against the entente cordiale. Max remembered it and the talk about it in the officers' mess at Fort Ellsworth, just after he joined his regiment. However, the Frenchman's photographs were his own business; and Max relented not at all toward the cheeky brute because he had a portrait of the great ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... York pie-foundries and stew-specialists on North Sea trawlers," said Percival severely, "but I never realised how monotonous feeding could be till I got into a Mess controlled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... issuing rations we were divided into messes of twenty, each mess electing a Sergeant as its head, and each floor electing a Sergeant-of-the-Floor, who drew rations and enforced what ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... some interesting phases. Our club of American officials decided to run a mess, so we employed a cook and a house boy, then each of us provided himself with a personal servant, making a total of six servants for four men—it takes about this proportion of servants to live in any sort of comfort in the Philippines—and launched ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... then, benefiting by his mistakes, he rectifies his ideas, and perfects his reason. In the first place, it is the savage sacrificing all his possessions for a trinket, and then repenting and weeping; it is Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, and afterwards wishing to cancel the bargain; it is the civilized workman laboring in insecurity, and continually demanding that his wages be increased, neither he nor his employer understanding that, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... incremation Of a poor fellow-creature, old, weary, and worn. All pity is drowned in a wild devotion, A grim savage joy within every breast; The streets are all in a buzzing commotion, Expectant of this worse than cannibal feast. From the provost down to the gaberlunzie, From fat Mess John to half-fed Bill, From hoary grand-dad to larking loonie, From silken-clad dame to scullion Nell; The oldest, the youngest, the richest, the poorest, The milky-breasted, the barren, the yeld, The hardest, the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... a very rude old woman,' he cried out. 'First you mess all our nice herbs about with your horrid brown fingers and sniff at them with your long nose till no one else will care to buy them, and then you say it's all bad stuff, though the duke's cook himself buys all ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... of thronging dreams, from the depths of that imaginary land where his weary spirit wandered in sleep, he was suddenly roused. A hand was laid on his shoulder, which shook him roughly, and a hoarse voice shouted in his ear, "Mess-mate! Halloo, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... all right then! He'll follow me like a lamb. He doesn't want to mess around with such. But she's got some ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... is all over now, my girl! There are no chiefs, and no clans any more! The chiefs that need not, yet sell their land like Esau for a mess of pottage—and their brothers with it! And the Sasunnach who buys it, claims rights over them that never grew on the land or were hid in its caves! Thank God, the poor man is not their slave, but he is the worse off, for they will not let him eat, and he has nowhere to go. My heart ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Stephen said as he sat down to it. "It is ten years since such a mess as this has passed my lips. I do not wonder that chap fell ill when he got back to prison if this is the sort of way they ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... charges when the bell rang, and I knew that Tedham had come. "Now, remember what I've told you," she called after me, as I went to the door, "and be sure to tell me, when you come back, just how he takes it and every word he says. Oh, dear, I know you'll make the most dreadful mess of it!" ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... himself. As regards verse 15, it represents the ipse dixit of the speaker. He does not think that the sceptic is at all entitled to a reply. It is scarcely necessary to say that the Burdwan translator makes a thorough mess of these verses. K.P. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... a Reward for her Supper and Lodging, which she would fain have return'd, but t'other would not receive it. 'Nay, then, by the Mackins, (said her Hostess) you shall take a Breakfast e're you go, and a Dinner along with you, for Fear you should be sick by the Way.' Arabella stay'd to eat a Mess of warm Milk, and took some of their Yesterday's Provision with her in a little course Linnen Bag. Then asking for the direct Road to London, and begging a few green Wall-nuts, she took her ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... I was aroused—in a few minutes, it seemed to me, although really it was nearly two hours later—by a boisterous banging upon the mess-table, followed by the voice of the marine who executed the functions of steward to ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... games. They were so much pleased with the game that they asked us to write down the name and where to get it, and one of them afterward told my nephew, also a cavalry officer, that they introduced it at their mess and played every night instead of cards or dominoes. It was really funny to see how annoyed they were when their scientific combinations failed. The next morning was beautiful—a splendid August day, not too hot, little ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... in the first place because his father has lost a legal case in which the Devereux family had been claiming his estates and land. To Paul's surprise, who should be in the midshipman's mess but a young man called Devereux, whose life Paul was able to save following his serious wounding. So we just need to keep in mind that Paul is always looking slightly askance at Devereux. Eventually ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Partly skinning it, they obtained some fat and melted this in a kettle over the fire. Sam Hicks had remained behind at the fire, the horses all standing near him, excited at the prospect of their usual meal. As soon as the fat was melted it was poured into the horse's wounds. The mess of gruel was then prepared and given to the animals. The bear was skinned and the hams cut off, then by a united effort it was dragged some distance from the hut, and the carcass of the big-horn, the bear's flesh and hide, were afterwards ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... to find that he had been trapped, when he had all the while thought that he was acting the part of a clever spy. He broke out in a storm of abuse. Radisson remanded the foolish young man to a French guard. At the mess-room table Radisson addressed ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... Hilary, whose civic morality flew much lower than this. "Nonsense! And stir the whole filthy mess up in the courts? I mean, make use of this fellow to find him, and enable us to find out just how much money he has left, and how much we have got to supply, in order to ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... don't want and won't have a landscape-gardener from Boston—with due deference to your well-formed opinions, Mr. Dodge. I intend to mess around myself, and change my mind every other day about all sorts of things. I want to work things out, not on paper in cold black and white; but in terms of growing things—wild things out of the woods. You ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... hair tied up tight, and a peaked hat put on me over a wig which had been flung into water. I 'm told that I looked something fearful; and the one who did the deed, and drew me, an innocent girl, into this mess, was Hollyhock Lennox. A poor English girl went almost raving mad, and no one could tell but that a real ghost had been about. Well, I'm the ghost, and the wicked one who led me astray was Hollyhock Lennox. After that she was frightened, seeing the effect of the ghost on poor Leucha, and she ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... such an effect on me to see him arrested and taken away by the guard that I could not eat my breakfast. I was recompensed, however, for it spared me from eating the daily mess of ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... for,—there was no danger. So with us,—though Jacob and Esau quarrelled already in the womb, yet, so long as the weaker and more politic brother can get the elder brother's portion, and simple Esau hunts his whales and pierces his untrodden forests, content with his mess of pottage,—honestly abiding by his bargain, though a little puzzled at its terms,—we think that fratricide, or the sincere thought of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... "Now, mess-mates, I've been rummagin' my brains a bit, and the outcome of it is as follows:—'Whatever is worth doin' is worth doin' well,' as the old proverb puts it. If we are to explore this country, we must set about learning to shoot, for if we don't, we are likely to starve ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne |
