"Needless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Irish,[179] then the term "Celtic" is loosely used for at least two quite distinct racial elements—the short, dark-complexioned type of Wales and the taller, lighter, often ruddy-haired type of the Highlands and parts of Ireland. Even if we confine ourselves to the Saxon element, which, needless to say, nowhere appears "pure," we are not at the end of our troubles. We may roughly identify this strain with the racial type now predominant in southern Denmark and adjoining parts of northern Germany. If so, we must content ourselves with the reflection that while the English language ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... Europe during the ensuing two years I prefer to dwell as lightly as possible. I had long anticipated a sojourn in divers old-world cities; but the London I had looked to find was the London of Dickens, say, and my Paris the Paris of Dumas, or at the very least of Balzac. It is needless to mention that in the circles to which the, quite real, friendship of John Charteris afforded an entry I found little that smacked of such antiquity. I had entered a world inhabited by people who amused ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... all that he intends to say, on sheets of paper folded lengthwise, leaving half of each page bare. He then reads over what he has written, and on the vacant half-page supplies defects, strikes out redundances, indicates the needless qualification, and modifies expressions. Thus sure of his thought and aim, conscientiously prepared, he abandons himself to the ardor of composition.... By noon his power of study is spent, and he walks, visits, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... placed in a social position parallel with that of the daughters of creole whites are in some cases allowed to pass for white,—or at the very worst, are only referred to in a whisper as being de couleur. (Needless to say, these are totally beyond the range of the present considerations: there is nothing to be further said of them except that they can be classed with the most attractive and refined women of the entire tropical ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... world, and they were as ashamed of my brother as they were proud of myself. However, he afterwards entered the army and distinguished himself highly. He died in battle, leaving an only daughter, who married, as you know, a nobleman of high rank. Her subsequent fate it is now needless to relate. ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and brought the tailor on deck. Needless to say, he had not slept a wink all night. Who, accustomed to a feather-bed, could snatch even ten minutes' sleep when his couch is Thames ballast? Sloper's eyes were bloodshot, and his countenance haggard. He looked inconceivably grimy and forlorn, and Bob Robins felt sorry for the ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... It is needless to say that neither Mr. or Mrs. Pitkin knew of Alonzo's tampering with the letter. Much as they would have been opposed to Phil's receiving such a letter, they would have been too wise to sanction such ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones—that is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such only inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating the soul; and all intense excitements are, through a psychal necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one-half of the "Paradise Lost" is essentially ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... must have been suggested by some event that had since happened. My curiosity impelled me to recall him from his reverie. I rose, and, seizing him by the arm, looked at him with an air of inquisitive anxiety. It was needless to speak. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... recovered his steadiness, he rose cautiously higher and higher, until his head was level with the top edge of the precipice, and then he ventured to raise his head rapidly, cast a flying glance round, and dip it again. But the latter precaution was needless; the ground still sloped upward, so that he could see for a distance of some forty yards only, but all the visible space was perfectly clear; there was no human eye to detect his presence there. Once more raising his head, and this ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... "Then all love is needless," she said, "we could do better without it, choose with more discretion. If it is only something that worries us for a little while and then passes, what is the sense ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... year for Jill before Bessie received the promised invitation. Not merely full as to its complement of days, but full of new cares, interests and activities. It is needless to say it was also a happy year. Building a house for a home is a healthful experience, a liberal education to one who can give personal attention to it; who has some knowledge of plans with enough imagination to have a fair conception of what they will be when executed; who is content to receive ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... methods were needless. She is never ugly, for in her seemingly forbidding moods she wears a smiling face. The smiles may not be apparent to all, but they are there for those who expect and ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... should be established which would aid men to get back pay and allotments, while still another department would look after their insurance and instruct them how to change it to policies of a permanent character. Needless to say these conclusions were not arrived at without a ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... a fair excuse for leaving his place by the shelf, and coming around to her side of the table, and for taking the pointer from her and standing close beside her while he explained the chart. Needless to say, he made ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... Needless to say, that the conversation of those without relates exclusively to the occurrences of the day, and the mystery of the murder. For this, they all believe it to have been; though utterly unable to make out, or conjecture ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... had, as a matter of fact, been Madame de Chantonnay's most patient listener through the months of suspense that followed Loo Barebone's sudden disappearance. Needless to say he agreed ardently with whatever explanation she put forward. Old ladies who give good dinners to a Low Church British curate, or an abbe of the Roman confession, or, indeed, to the needy celibate ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... an effect, of which it is difficult to judge the amount. But in this case, independently of the insignificance of such an agency, good reasons can be assigned for believing that this valley was formerly occupied by an arm of the sea. It is needless in this work to detail the arguments leading to this conclusion, derived from the form and the nature of the step-formed terraces on both sides of the valley, from the manner in which the bottom of the valley near the Andes expands into a great estuary-like plain with ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... perfection in this life, much less supererogate: when we have all done, we are unprofitable servants. But because we do aliud agere, zealous without knowledge, and too solicitous about that which is not necessary, busying ourselves about impertinent, needless, idle, and vain ceremonies, populo ut placerent, as the Jews did about sacrifices, oblations, offerings, incense, new moons, feasts, &c., but Isaiah taxeth them, i. 12, "who required this at your hands?" We have too great opinion of our own worth, that we can satisfy the law: and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... preserved a steady obedience to Government. While every other colony was bidding defiance to Britain, this alone submissively applied to her for redress of grievances. Was it consistent with policy, after losing the good-will of all the other colonies, to drive this, through a needless and punctilious severity, into their confederacy against this country? Could we expect, after such a treatment, that this colony could withstand the arguments that would be drawn from our superciliousness ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Needless to say, he was composing a great deal. Much of his manuscript was, of course, torn up or consigned to the flames, but one piece of work survived. This was his first Mass in F (No. 11 in Novello's edition), erroneously dated by some writers ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... nothing, and whatever criticism I shall make here is of that particular portion of the Salvation Army which does business on Blackfriars Road near the Surrey Theatre. In the first place, this forcing of men who have been up all night to stand on their feet for hours longer, is as cruel as it is needless. We were weak, famished, and exhausted from our night's hardship and lack of sleep, and yet there we stood, and stood, and stood, without rhyme ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... his shoulders at the question, as though any answer were needless. He hung the foil he had used in its place on the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... from their language, either when they spoke concerning any one, or addressed any one by letter. To have used the word master to a person, who was no master over them, would have been, they considered, to have indicated a needless servility, and to have given a false picture of their own situation, as well as ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... manage the planting of that commodity by white people in so hot a climate, so neither could sufficient numbers of such be had at any rate. Necessity, therefore, and the example of Portugal gave birth to the negro slave trade to the coast of Guinea and it is almost needless to add, that such great numbers of slaves, and also the increase of white people in those islands, soon created a vast demand for all necessaries from England, and also a new and considerable trade to Madeira for wines to supply those islands." The immediate consequence of the spread ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... translated the rajah's words, though the task was needless, for all present followed him ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... with Forister: Colonel Royale was an extremely busy man, and almost tired my life out with a quantity of needless attentions. For my part, I thought more of Lady Mary and the fact that she considered me no more than if I had been a spud. Colonel Royale fluttered about me. I would have gruffly sent him away if it were not that everything he did was meant in kindliness and generous feeling. ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... needless to say that breakfast was not early next morning. Nor did it consist as Roger had intimated, of "shredded whisk brooms," but was a delightful meal, at which Patty became better acquainted with the Warner family, and confirmed the pleasant impressions ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... in respect to rights, stands on an equal footing with man. In the judgment of such persons the American slave system, with all its concomitant horrors, is less to be deplored than this wicked idea. It is perhaps needless to say, that we cherish little sympathy for such sentiments or respect for such prejudices. Standing as we do upon the watch-tower of human freedom, we can not be deterred from an expression of our approbation of any movement, however humble, to improve and elevate the character of any members of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... accomplice and a murderer, too? But, of course, he gives a better account of himself than of his friend; it is needless to ask. This will supply the rest of them here with something new to talk about. Casby, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... simply a peculiar vocabulary. There is a strong temptation to assume that presenting subject matter in its perfected form provides a royal road to learning. What more natural than to suppose that the immature can be saved time and energy, and be protected from needless error by commencing where competent inquirers have left off? The outcome is written large in the history of education. Pupils begin their study of science with texts in which the subject is organized into topics according to the order of the specialist. Technical concepts, with their definitions, ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... authority only by dazzling France, and continuing to astonish mankind by brilliant achievements, drove him forward on a path of aggression and bloodshed. He had an unpitying nature: he was careless of human suffering. Early in his career, in Italy, he ordered a needless and useless attack on the outposts of the enemy, "to treat a lady to a sight of real war." He did not shrink from ordering two thousand prisoners at Jaffa to be shot. He shocked all Germany by causing Palm, a bookseller of Nuremberg, to be shot for refusing to ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... thousand dollars that I do," he had told Silvey when that youngster scoffed at his plans as they walked to school, one bleak, overcast noon. Needless to say, Bill did not meet the wager. He wasn't accustomed to thinking in such large sums and, besides, John's manner ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... glorified and his name honored it is needless to say, and from that time Edwin was accepted without question as a gifted and qualified minister of the gospel, and his calls both in his home community and in other places were many. He was even preferred above other able ministers because of ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... It is needless to say that I read every word of the book to my Shaker friends before it was published. They took a deep interest in it, evincing keen delight in my rather facetious but wholly imaginary portrait of "Brother Ansel," a "born Shaker," and sadly confessing that ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the tower, which, when both drawbridges were raised, formed an insulated fortalice in the midst of the river. He was entitled to a small toll or custom for the passage, concerning the amount of which disputes sometimes arose between him and the passengers. It is needless to say, that the bridge-ward had usually the better in these questions, since he could at pleasure detain the traveller on the opposite side; or, suffering him to pass half way, might keep him prisoner in his tower till they were agreed on the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... and lover of the Bible. Her children, though a good deal wilder, were sweet-tempered like herself. It is needless to add that in spite of adverse circumstances they were all moderately happy. The fair telegraphist smiled, almost laughed, as her mind hovered over ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... recommend nothing better, therefore, than that you endeavour to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others. To recommend this has the appearance of needless and superfluous advice, but it has fallen within my own knowledge that artists, though they are not wanting in a sincere love for their art, though they have great pleasure in seeing good pictures, and are well skilled to distinguish what is excellent or defective ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... repeated Dora, clasping her hands over her eyes, and weeping behind them. "What good can it do except to inflict needless torture?" ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... both sides the modern woman question have been pretty thoroughly presented and well argued. It seems needless to repeat or recombine them; but in one relation they have scarcely been handled with any direct purpose. Justice and expediency have been the points insisted on or contested; these have not gone back far enough; they have not touched the central fact, to set ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... being completed in 1071, but its incrustation with marble not till considerably later. It was consecrated on the 8th of October, 1085, [Footnote: "To God the Lord, the glorious Virgin Annunciate, and the Protector St. Mark."—Corner, p. 14. It is needless to trouble the reader with the various authorities for the above statements: I have consulted the best. The previous inscription once existing ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... found these words in the fourth chapter. When I came to the seventh verse she interrupted me, and, with needless apologies for such a liberty, desired me to read it very slowly, that she might take it all in, and dwell on every word; hoping I would excuse her, as she ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... precautions are quite needless and beside the matter in hand, as you will immediately see for yourselves. My reputation demands, however, that other people who are not present would not be able to say afterward that trickery ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... letter which I promised you, dear father, is needless. I have to-day sent Mr. Peak a reply which closes our correspondence. I am sure he will not write again; if he were to do so, I ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... house branched into three at the end of about a mile; and, as this point opened to view on the afternoon in question, a yellow figure was seen to be standing there motionless, evidently waiting to see which of the three ways the carriage would take. Needless to say it was Dan, and that of course he had ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... had for many years frequented the Newfoundland Banks for codfish. In 1534 he sailed to push his exploration farther than had as yet been attempted. His inspiration was the old dream of all the early navigators, the hope of finding a highway to China. Needless to say, he did not find it, but he found something ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... in the gentleness of thy sweet youth Hast never trodden on a worm, or bruised A living flower, but thou hast pitied it With needless tears." ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... perhaps needless to remark that no goshawk sings sweetly, much less talks. In Buchan's version (of forty-nine stanzas) the goshawk is exchanged ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... wrong, but at least this La Mothe was no assassin. Nevertheless the door upon the right opened quietly so soon as La Mothe had passed beyond eyesight of it, opened wide enough for a cross-bow to cover him from the darkness of the passage without. Louis was not a man to run a needless risk, and the bolt which brought home the King's justice to the nettle-gatherer would not miss Stephen La Mothe at ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... culminates in a given climax, which usually consists in a victory of skill, speed or strength. In a strictly scientific sense, games do not always involve the element of sport or play, being used in many forms among primitive peoples for serious divinatory purposes. It is perhaps needless to say that all of the games in the present collection are for the purpose of sport ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... serious mistake of throwing the ball into the wrong basket. This elicited vociferous cheering from junior fans and spurred their team on to the fastest playing they had done since the beginning of the game. Needless to say they dropped their unfair tactics at the last and fought with fierce energy to pile up their score. The freshmen also picked up on the closing few minutes, but the game ended 24-20 ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... it is needless to explain. What most concerns me this morning is your belief that ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... "It would be needless for me to tell you, who are much better judges, how the increasing settlement of a new colony upon the southern frontiers, will prevent the like danger for the future. Nor need I tell you how every plantation will increase in value, by the safety ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... is to Chicago we must turn for the most extraordinary results of this atmospheric disturbance. It is needless to tell the story in detail. The world knows it ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... told me, implored me never to tell you. Well, perhaps he thought it would give you needless pain. But I was thinking, within the last few days, that I ought to tell you ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... out of practice; he generally was, his duties as professor allowing him little time for technical exercising; but once every few years he set to work and got his fingers into a condition which enabled them to follow his intentions; and those intentions, it is needless to say, were always honourable! He never played any of those show pieces which help along a pianist, but confined himself to the best he ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... even Tea Roses, and Carnations, can be kept moderately well in the cellar by trenching them in dry, or moderately moist sand. Thus many choice specimens of these plants that we are loth to pull up and threw away when winter approaches, can be successfully kept over until the next season. It is a needless expense to purchase a stock of new plants for the garden every year, when we can winter many of the old ones in this simple and inexpensive manner. The leaves of all deciduous plants should be removed before they are put ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... scarcely be repeated too often, that in the estimate of the gain or loss thereupon ensuing, we must by no means put certainly to loss everything which the language has dismissed, any more than everything to gain which it has acquired. It is no real wealth in a language to have needless and superfluous forms. They are often an embarrassment and an encumbrance to it rather than a help. The Finnish language has fourteen cases. Without pretending to know exactly what it is able to effect, I yet feel confident that it cannot effect more, nor indeed so much, with ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... in size and importance; it is beyond the Pantheon, out of the foreign quarter of Rome, and you will find in it a Roman audience—to a limited extent. Salvini acted there in Othello, and filled the character admirably; it is needless to say that Iago received even more applause than Othello; Italians know such men profoundly—they are Figaros turned undertakers. Opera was given at the Capranica when the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... The descriptions, it is needless to say, are masterly. No novelist has ever before succeeded in thus depicting the emotions and utterances of the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... no whit more than just. You were absolutely warranted in such a course toward me. What I long to do—what I have crossed the world in the hope of doing—is to get you to forgive yourself, to free yourself of a hallucination which is casting a needless shadow ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... against her. But she also remembers the note she believes Tracey has written to Nita, and which, if found after Nita's death, may give her away. So she goes to the closet in Nita's bedroom, finds the note, and faints with horror at her perhaps needless crime when she realizes that the note was written by Sprague, and not Tracey. Of course she is too ill and panic-stricken to leave the closet until ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... he is having needless bother. How miserable! Our slaves are a burden, not worth the trifles they pilfer. I wish they would all run away, then we might ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the tower stands the monument of the poet Shelley, the work of the sculptor Weekes. Needless to say, it is but a cenotaph. The "heart of hearts," "Cor Cordium," and the ashes of the poet cremated on the Tuscan shore, lie far away, hard by the pyramid of Caius Cestius, in the grave where the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... whatever might by his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a temperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless. When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... consecrated in the Mysteries, at the beginning of the rites, was intended as an emblem of the ark resting on the abyss of waters, and that its latent hatching was meant to suggest the opening of the ark to let the imprisoned patriarch forth. This hypothesis has no proof, and is needless. It is much more plausible to suppose that the egg was meant as a symbol of a new life about to burst upon the candidate, a symbol of his resurrection from the mystic tomb wherein he was buried during one stage of initiation; ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... that where personal feelings and the hope of material advantages are not an inducement to partake in the expedition, they are frequently tempted with an offer of some such thing as a fine bolo or a lance, to lend their services to the leader of the war party. It is needless to say that only close ties of friendship or relationship to the enemy prevent the offer from being accepted, especially as the acceptance of it relieves the Manbo from all responsibility for such deaths as may accrue to his credit ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... storage battery does not return more than 70 per cent, of the work expended in charging it, we ought not to condemn it on that account until we have ascertained whether this low efficiency renders the system unfit for any or all commercial purposes. It is needless to go into figures in order to show that, when compared with animal power, this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... This needless infliction, coming upon him at the crisis of an adventurous night, infuriated Mr Pickering. He swore softly. He groped round the walls for an electric-light switch, but the shack had no electric-light switch. When ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... was not His Majesty's purpose to enter into lengthy discussions, I think Your Electoral Grace might answer that His Imperial Majesty's manifesto promises that he would graciously listen to these matters. If such was not intended, the manifesto would have been needless, for His Imperial Majesty might have rendered his decision just as well in Spain without summoning Your Electoral Grace to Augsburg at such great labor and expense. ... In the second place: Should His Imperial Majesty insist that the Imperial Majesty be permitted ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... home neglecting If you spend your time selecting Seven blouses and a jacket and a hat; Or to give your day to paying Needless visits, or to playing Auction bridge. What critic could object to that? But to spend two precious hours At a lecture! Oh, my powers, The home is all a woman needs to learn. And an hour, or ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller
... intellect the initial difficulty at once suggests itself as to what is meant by poetry. But it is needless to quibble at a definition of the term. It may be designated, simply and fairly, as the art of expressing a simple truth in a concealed form of words, any number of which, at intervals greater or less, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... be seen that I have sacrificed every attempt at elegance in the English translation to an endeavor to preserve faithfully the style of the original, even to its needless repetitions ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... are mighty sins; these have made thine iniquity infinite. What wilt thou do? Thou hast created to thyself a world of needless miseries. I call them needless, because thou hadst more than enough before. Thou hast set thyself against God in a way of contending; thou standest upon thy points and pantables:15 Thou wilt not bate God an ace, of what thy righteousness is worth, and wilt also make ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hate." And thus we have nearly determined how many the inhabitants of a city ought to be, and what their natural disposition, and also the country how large, and of what sort is necessary; I say nearly, because it is needless to endeavour at as great accuracy in those things which are the objects of the senses as in those which are inquired into by the ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... being a tall man, involuntarily stooped as he passed through the door, a needless precaution, for gaunt, gigantic mountaineers had entered there before him and ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... read a chapter from the Bible; after which he took his leave with the same affectionate kindness with which he had greeted me, having repeated his desire that I should consider everything in his house as altogether at my disposal. It is needless to say that I was much pleased with my uncle—it was impossible to avoid being so; and I could not help saying to myself, if such a man as this is not safe from the assaults of slander, who is? I felt much happier than I had done since my father's death, and enjoyed that night the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... needless to say, centred around Severac Bablon. Why, she asked herself, despite his deeds, did she admire and respect him? Her mind refused to face the problem, but she felt a hot blush rise to her cheeks. She was a traitor to her father; she could not deny it. But at any ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... you give yourself needless anxiety about the situation of public affairs. It has been always held a maxim that our island and seaport towns were at the discretion of the tyrant of Great Britain. Reasons for the retreat from Long Island are well known. The evacuation of New-York was a necessary consequence. The manner ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... spirits—they lack reality. The two new names may join the illustrious company, and with so much the more reason, since that Wilhelm who had helped to drink Fritz's inheritance now proceeded, with Fritz's assistance, to devour his own substance; smoking, needless to say, every known ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... at Tjiseroepan. One morning, together with Usoof and Abu, for X. was growing tired of sight seeing all alone, having obtained permission from the kind Assistant-Resident to use the Government Rest House, he drove to Tjiseroepan. The road was excellent and the route, needless to say, lay through a beautiful country. Here, as everywhere else, all well-to-do natives were riding ponies. The distance was thirteen miles. Tjiseroepan is a little village in the hills at the foot of the ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... heavy, the hours that intervened. In spite of keeping herself close and making no needless advertisement of her proceedings, Eleanor could not escape many an encounter with old friends or acquaintances. They heard of her from her mother; learned her address; and then curiosity was enough, without affection, to bring several; and affection mingled with curiosity ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... inhabitants to defend themselves in every quarter against them; and, during the night, gause pavilions are necessarily used, to exclude them from their beds, without which it is impossible to enjoy undisturbed repose. The sand-flies are also vexatious insects, and so minute, that one would imagine it needless to provide any defence against them; yet, wherever they bite, their poison occasions itching and painful inflammations. Besides these, there are ticks, flies, wasps, and many more insects which are very troublesome. To these plagues, with which this country ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... reluctantly withdrawing when she added, "Mr. Byron gave me to understand that you tried to prevent his entrance by force. You exposed yourself to needless risk by doing so; and you may make a rule in future that when people are importunate, and will not go away when asked, they had better come in until you get special instructions from me. I am not finding fault; on the contrary, I approve of your determination to ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... really derive its polity from the synagogue is a fact upon the proof of which, in the present state of theological learning, it is needless to expend many words."—Litton's Church of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... It is almost needless to say that the son of the non-juror and his immediate posterity were staunch Jacobites, one and all. I am not aware that they ever risked or suffered anything for the cause; but they were not therefore ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... Needless to say, a complete history of a country as vast as Canada, whose past in every section fairly teems with action, could not be crowded into one volume. To give even the story {iv} of Canada's most prominent episodes and actors is a matter of ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... of Lord Delaware, who was one of the chief managers against Handel, "with as much spleen as if he had been at the head of the Dutch faction who opposed the making her husband Stadtholder." It seems needless to say that George himself had no artistic appreciation of Handel. He subscribed one thousand a year to enable Handel to fight his battle, but he talked over the matter with unenthusiastic prosaic common-sense. He said he ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... with the least expense to the public treasury, and it will at once become the object of the public gratitude and warm affection; men will study how to facilitate all its transactions, will be conscientiously careful not to impose any needless trouble upon its servants, and will generally watch for its interests as their own. Such is the benign effect upon all the considerate portions of society in England. Then the government will be fully sustained in insisting that all railroads ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... time—since the last Wraythwaite died, in fact. That Wraythwaite was a confirmed old bachelor. He lived to a great age—he outlived all his brothers and sisters, of whom he'd had several. He left quite a tribe of nephews and nieces, who were distributed all over the world. Needless to say, there was vast bother and trouble. Finally, one of the nephews made a strong claim to the estate, as being the eldest known heir. And he was until recently in good trim for establishing his claim, ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... this chapter, it is needless to observe that there is a bond of connection between constabulary and dispensary doctors, for the latter are needed on many occasions to attend to the wounds of ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... men on the soil of Boston. The one Massachusetts vote for man-stealing must come from the town which once bore a Franklin and an Adams in her bosom; yes, from under the eaves of John Hancock's house! That one vote was not disgrace enough; his successor [Hon. William Appleton] must take a needless delight in reaffirming the infamy. When the bill passed, Gentlemen, you remember how ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... better than ours are now, and also that all things then used for food were more healthful than those now used. To these particulars we must add that important requisite for a long life, the greatest moderation in the use and enjoyment of food. To what extent the latter conduces to health, is needless ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... and it will serve to line a bed, or for twenty uses, to our great content. And there wrote fair my angry letter to my father upon that that he wrote to my cozen Roger Pepys, which I hope will make him the more carefull to trust to my advice for the time to come without so many needless complaints and jealousys, which are troublesome ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... spared the supreme agony caused by a blundering cable from Paris saying that he had been drowned by a submarine. (An error which Mr. Norton subsequently cabled that he had discovered six weeks before.) My boy's mother and all American mothers have a right to be protected against all needless anxiety and sorrow. ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... him, saying, 'Now I can cut off your head.' The attendant answered, 'Oh, sir, anybody can cut off one head; it would be a stroke more worthy of you to cut off two. Wait a moment till I go for another.' To this the general consented, and the man quickly made his escape from the room. Needless to say, he returned with help and overcame the madman; he owed his life to his ready presence of mind in ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... length he arrived at the great object of his musical vagabondizing, the far-famed city of Granada, and hailed with wonder and delight its Moorish towers, its lovely vega, and its snowy mountains glistening through a summer atmosphere. It is needless to say with what eager curiosity he entered its gates and wandered through its streets, and gazed upon its Oriental monuments. Every female face peering through a window or beaming from a balcony was to him a Zorayda ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... was always ready to jump at any excuse to get away from the society of Colonel Best-Dunkley; and he was never happier than when, over a nice selection of drinks, he was retailing the Colonel's latest sayings and doings. And we, needless to say, were never happier than when listening to him on this most interesting topic! Roake and Humfrey with little "Darky," who was their invariable companion, ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... looked at the body and perceived that his offices were needless, and then turned to Amine, who had not yet ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... plates are very excellent, but to say they were quite unapproached by Delatre is not only needless exaggeration, but an unkindness ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... covered with a thin coating of silver and highly polished, have been used since about 1870 instead of metal mirrors. They are very much lighter in weight and cheaper to make than the old specula; and though the silvering, needless to say, deteriorates with time, it can be renewed at a comparatively trifling cost. Also these mirrors reflect much more light, and give a clearer view, than did ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... those erratic Countesses of Croye, ere they attained Liege (for thither I frankly confessed that, to the best of my belief, they were gone), falling into the hands of some wild snapper upon the frontiers, and, Pasques dieu! you would have thought I had spoken of sacrilege. It is needless to tell you what he said, and quite enough to say that I would have held my head's safety very insecure, if, in that moment, accounts had been brought of the success of thy friend, William with the Beard, in his and thy honest scheme of ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... all a bubble, And wooing but a needless trouble, Damon grew fond of posied rings, And many such romantic things; But whether it were Fortune's spite, That study wound his brain too tight, Or that his fancy play'd him tricks, He could not on the lady fix. He look'd around, And often found, A damsel ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... is, "Feed them well, work them hard and give them enough sleep." Among the volumes on his shelves there were three books about Tolstoy and another three, one English, one American and one German, all bearing the same title, The Social Question. Needless to say that Self-Help ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... capture of Quebec. "In the last two years," he says, "the Assembly of Massachusetts has spent about L50,000 in defending the Province, whereas three or four of the Queen's ships and fifteen hundred New England men would rid us of the French and make further outlay needless,"—a view, it ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... done well during this last term, I hope, Miss Pew?' he said, interrogatively, but rather as if the question were needless, as he walked beside ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... It is needless to say that the mole-hill had been closed up the same day, and with the greatest care, and that the watch was doubled inside as well ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... of the law of libel. It's fair comment on a matter of public interest. But never mind. Pro domo. So be it. For his house tant que vous voudrez. And yet in truth I was by no means anxious to justify my existence. The attempt would have been not only needless and absurd, but almost inconceivable, in a purely spectacular universe, where no such disagreeable necessity can possibly arise. It is sufficient for me to say (and I am saying it at some length in these pages): ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... you say, Gertrude?" the countess asked. "But I know that your mind has been so long made up that it is needless to question you." ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... a busy interval during which the greatest justice was done to an excellent meal, and Ned was initiated into the mystery of sambals—tiny saucers of pickle-like and preserve preparations, popular amongst the Malays as appetisers, but quite needless in Ned's case, for he was perfectly independent of anything of the kind, and after his curry and coffee, now the first chill of strangeness had passed, paid plenty of attention to the fruit pressed upon him by the doctor's daughter. Now it was a deliciously-flavoured ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... men to choose some profession without needless delay, and so get into a good strong current of human affairs, and find themselves bound up in interests with a compact body of ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... It is needless to describe the dismay and astonishment which poor Hilda's return excited in the establishment. Lawrence had evidently in no way warned them of what had occurred. Bertha Eswick had need of all her self-possession and presence ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... country, such a denial of the simplest and most primitive rights, such an utter absence of delicacy and good manners; and had we not been assured on good authority that such things existed, we should consider any suggestions respecting them needless ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... which should not be known, to eat of the forbidden fruit. We commonly molest and tire ourselves about things unfit and unnecessary, as Martha troubled herself to little purpose. Be it in religion, humanity, magic, philosophy, policy, any action or study, 'tis a needless trouble, a mere torment. For what else is school divinity, how many doth it puzzle? what fruitless questions about the Trinity, resurrection, election, predestination, reprobation, hell-fire, &c., how many shall be saved, damned? ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the city he should be happy to place his box at the disposal of Ruth and her friends. Needless to say that she ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... of diminutiveness is, I think, chiefly owing to there being no other groups of figures near them, to accustom the eye to the proportion, and to the needless choice of the largest animals, elephants, bears, and lions, to occupy a position so completely insignificant, and to be expressed on so contemptible a scale,—not in a bas-relief or pictorial piece of sculpture, but as independent figures. The whole building is a ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... man who goes about writing the Lord's Prayer in the space of half a dollar. My name was in larger capitals, the rest in smaller letters, than usual, and I was requested "to oblidge him with the sum of twelve dolers an' a half." I knew then that the first organ-instalment was due, but I think it needless to add, his application was refused. About a week afterward, I learned that the Sabbath-school was again without a musical instrument, the organ having been pawned for twenty dollars, Thomas paying ten per cent a month on the money. It was so with everything he undertook. Once ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... head. Like the dagger, it had gone. He could not account for that disappearance, nor did he try. It would turn up again. So, ultimately, would the ousted sequence. For the latter's departure he did not try to account either. The effort was needless. He knew. An interruption had occurred. The news of the day had intruded itself upon him. A ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... photographs of himself, chronologically arranged. Needless to say, it was not he who showed them. There was the half-nude baby, with eyes already sparkling and eager, then the schoolboy with the fine carriage of the head, then the lad fresh from school with a singularly calm expression, and well filled-out cheeks. A ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... But it is needless to multiply instances of this symbolism. In adopting the acacia as a symbol of innocence, Masonry has but extended the principle of an ancient and universal usage, which thus consecrated particular plants, by a mystical ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... of the battle, There in the stir of the fight, Loomed he, an ebony giant, Black as the pinions of night. Swinging his scythe like a mower Over a field of grain, Needless the care of the gleaners, ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the famous Ben Jonson? He was first a brick-layer, or mason! What was he in after years? 'Tis needless to answer. ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... to what the treacherous Jamison was saying, but it is needless to remark that he did not accept it as truth. It was his belief that the fellow was manufacturing a pretext for getting himself and his friends quietly on shore as soon as one of the Barren islands ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... Point, and Grant thus effected an immediate junction with Butler's force of thirty-two thousand. Butler's second attempt to seize Petersburg while Grant was marching to join him also failed, and Grant, unwilling to make any needless sacrifice, now limited his operations to the processes ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... know where his regiment had been sent. Mr. Cook, although he too was concerned about his elder son, was occupied principally with anxiety as to the plots that seemed to be brewing all about him, and the possible damage to his factory. Bob, needless to say, was highly excited over the prospects of adventure that the evening ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... Miss DOROTHY: I would not be thought to flutter y'r Gentle Bosom with Needless Alarms, nor do I believe I have misjudged y'r Warm & Generous Nature when I write you that One who is held very High in y'r Esteem lies Exceeding Ill at this Place, who might by Tender Nursing regain his Health. I seize this Opportunity ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 1785). The satire upon this gallant soldier's veracity appears to be quite undeserved, though one can hardly read portions of his adventures without being forcibly reminded of the Baron's laconic style. It is needless to add that the amazing account of De Tott's origin is grossly libellous. The amount of public interest excited by the aeronautical exploits of Montgolfier and Blanchard was also playfully satirised. Their first imitator in England, Vincenzo Lunardi, had made a successful ascent from Moorfields ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... priest, "Father Prout" of Fraser's Magazine, who befriended them with good spirits and a potion of eggs and port wine when Browning was ill in Florence, and chided Mrs Browning as a "bambina" for her needless fears. Charles Lever "with the sunniest of faces and cordialest of manners"—animal spirits preponderating a little too much over an energetic intellect—called on them at the Baths of Lucca, but the acquaintance did not ripen into friendship. And little ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... anger at the discovery of her daughter's refusal it is needless to describe—it may easily be imagined; and poor Mary was almost heartbroken by the violence and duration of it. Sometimes she wavered in her ideas as to whether she was doing right in thus resisting her mother's wishes; ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... of innocent Truth and undissembled Honesty, as is like to leave in him (if he be a good natur'd Reader) more sympathizing and virtuous Impressions, than ten times so much time spent in impertinent, critical, and needless Disputes about Religion: and I heartily wish it ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton
... atmosphere less benevolent to learning can be imagined. The future philosopher went to school at Aix for a little while, and then his weak health was made the excuse for cancelling what was perhaps looked upon as a needless expense. He was thrown upon himself, and what education he secured was the result of his ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... meagre room, containing two truckle-beds, two rush-bottomed chairs, a broken old gilt-bordered looking-glass, and evil smells. At 6 a.m. the sleeping men were wakened by the patrol of an armed grenadier in the bedroom—a needless annoyance. The meals of fresh meat, bread, fruit, and vegetables ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... and peeped at him. He was lying as I had left him. Again I went below; but before I dropped into the lazarette I took the precaution of casting down the door in advance. At least there would be no lid to the trap. But it was all needless. I regained the cabin with a store of jams, sea-biscuits, canned meats, and such things,—all I could carry,—and ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... with which I was credited by my friends, and which not unseldom did cause me many a needless foreboding, was rampant now; and visions arose before me of disgrace to the family, if those dreadful newspaper people did, as they threatened, "give further particulars," and perhaps go to greater lengths, and even print my name in their horrible sheet. Should I ever be able ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... it is needless to go into detail; they brought me wealth, influence, power, all that I had craved, but little of happiness. Even when there came tidings of my brother's death at sea, and I felt that at last my title ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... say that on voyages of this kind it is more than ever vitally necessary to keep one's surroundings as clean and sweet as possible. The important thing is to get rid of anything that may have a demoralizing and depressing effect. The influence of uncleanliness in this way is so well known that it is needless to preach about ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... are a good friend," said foolish Philip, who, it is needless to say, could hardly have had a worse enemy than the one who offered ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... which the approach of them inspires me. My cruel imagination, incessantly tormented by the apprehension of evils still at a distance, diverts my attention, and prevents me from recollecting those which are past. Caution is needless after the evil has happened, and it is time lost to give it a thought. I, in some measure, put a period to my misfortunes before they happen: the more I have suffered at their approach the greater is the facility with which I forget ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau |
