"Nine times" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would become so violent that nine times out of ten her petticoat-string would give way with ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... know what particular call you've got to be sorry for me, Helene Churchill," she drawled languidly. "I've got my character, same as you've got yours. And just about nine times as many good looks. And when it comes to nursing—" Like an alto song pierced suddenly by one shrill treble note, the girl's immobile face sharpened transiently with a single jagged flash of emotion. "And when it comes to nursing? ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... fleeting charms of form. 'Tis true he is old; but can woman be better employed than in tending her aged and sickly companion? That he has been married is likewise certain—but ah, my mother! who knows not that he must be a good and tender husband, who, nine times wedded, owns that, he cannot be happy without ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pounds for certain; and it would be doubled under a scholar and a gentleman—1200 pounds a year! And you might throw it open to boarders; set up the houses in the Terrace, and let them at—say 40 pounds? Nine houses, nine times forty—' ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your face. Such authorities as Fred Perry and Dick Ling claim that the proper thing to do is to arise gracefully from your chair and sing something plaintive, in minor chords. This generally brings your partner back to earth, because nine times out of ten he is only temporarily ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... the rapid rate at which we are consuming our forests, we use nine times as much lumber for every man, woman and child as the people of Germany use, and twenty-five times as much as the people of England use. This is due to several causes, many of which ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... Norfolk in a sinking condition. Iron-clad against iron-clad, we manoeuvred about the bay here, and went at each other with mutual fairness. I consider that both ships were well fought. We were struck twenty-two times—pilot-house twice, turret nine times, deck three times, sides eight times. The only vulnerable point was the pilot-house. One of your great logs (nine by twelve inches thick) is broken in two. The shot struck just outside of where the captain had his eye, and disabled him by destroying ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... he had always fought, and ninety-nine times out of one hundred he firmly believed that he was enforcing the right. The white man fought after his own custom and sometimes after the Indian's custom also; and not infrequently he knew that he was ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... foreigners, and draws away your money by absentees, without suffering you to enjoy your natural advantages in trade and commerce. No man living loves restrictive regulations of any kind less than myself; at best, nine times in ten, they are little better than laborious and vexatious follies. Often, as in your case, they are great oppressions, as well as great absurdities. But still an injury is not always a reason for retaliation; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a woman nine times out of ten because he cannot obtain her in any other way; then when he has become indifferent by possession, he still thinks that she should remain devoted to him. You are right, Stepan, ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... vast areas, making the great fertile corn and wheat belt of our country. He knows that this section produces, annually, such a quantity of corn as would require for transportation a procession of teams that would encircle the earth nine times, at the equator, and he interprets all this as sea. The word leads him, also, through the mazes and mysteries of meteorology, revealing to him the origin of the rain, the snow, the dew, and the frost, with all the wonders of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... be scraped from the youth's buckle that the gleam of the costly silver might lead him to that which was buried. "Then cut a stick from the juniper three spans long, turn the point three times toward the grass where you have offered the blood, and walk nine times round the juniper bush from west to east. But at every round strike the grass under the bush three times with the stick, and at every blow say 'Igrek!'[64] At the eighth round you will perceive a subterranean jingling of money, and after ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... averaging thirty-two every year, and one about every eleven days; with a substantially corresponding number issued. The height of this inventive activity was attained about 1882, in which year no fewer than 141 patents were applied for, and seventy-five granted to him, or nearly nine times as many as in 1876, when invention as a profession may be said to have been adopted by this prolific genius. It will be understood, of course, that even these figures do not represent the full measure of actual invention, as in every ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... If a soldier is lucky enough to pick up a little, he can go to the nearest water, of which there is plenty, mix his cake without yeast or baking-powder, and make some sort of a wretched mouthful. He gets one pound of raw fresh meat daily, which nine times out of ten he cannot cook, ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... such unlimited confidence had both Toby and Steve come to place in Jack Winters. But then he merited all their high esteem, for rarely did things go wrong when Jack's hand was at the helm; he seemed to be one of those fellows whose judgment is right nine times out of ten. Looking back, the Chester lads could begin to understand what a great day it had been for them when Jack came to town, full of ideas which he had imbibed in the lively city where his folks had ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... the bed room eight times four, And utter'd thrice a hideous roar; He pac'd the bed room nine times three, And ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... nine times in one week. Nine times. But your Uncle Victor got him away before he could speak. But he came again and again. He wouldn't take 'No' for an answer. Britton, how many times did Mr. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... of The Mall in Washington, DC Johnston Atoll: about four and a half times the size of The Mall in Washington, DC Kingman Reef: a little more than one and a half times the size of The Mall in Washington, DC Midway Islands: about nine times the size of The Mall in Washington, DC Palmyra Atoll: about 20 times the size of The ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Early this morning mother came to herself and asked for something to eat. Doctor Williams has been here, and now he tells us all the things he wouldn't tell us before. It was some little clot in one of the veins or arteries of the brain, and nine times out of ten there ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... human policy. We shall have no faith in evil when faith finds a resting-place and scientific under- [5] standing guides man. Honesty in every condition, under every circumstance, is the indispensable rule of obedience. To obey the principle of mathematics ninety- nine times in one hundred and then allow one numeral to make incorrect your entire problem, is neither ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... which excitement in some form or another could generally be obtained. You worried it and took your chance. Either it howled, in which case you had to run for your life, followed—and, unfortunately, overtaken nine times out of ten—by a whirlwind of vengeance; or it gurgled: in which case the heavens smiled and halos descended on your head. In either event you escaped the deadly ennui that is the result of continuous virtue. Master Grindley, his star having pointed out to him ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... th'Almighty pow'r Hurl'd headlong, flaming from the aetherial sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition; there to dwell In adamantine chains, and penal fire; Who durst defy th'Omnipotent to arms. Nine times the space that measures ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... of ground into that nook where the South Dome seems almost to meet the Half Dome, and stood by the glassy waters of Mirror Lake. In that early hour before the ripples had stirred the surface, this lakelet at the foot of the Half Dome was worthy of all its romantic fame. Nine times that morning Job and Jane saw the sun rise over the rounded peak of the Half Dome, as they followed slowly the shores of the lake from sun-kissed beach to shadow. Jane went into ecstasies. Was it not beautiful! What a picture! The clear-cut rocky mountain, its low edges fringed with ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... something extraordinary, but the drudgery they regarded as the price of success. Addison amassed as much as three folios of manuscript materials before he began his 'Spectator.' Newton wrote his 'Chronology' fifteen times over before he was satisfied with it; and Gibbon wrote out his 'Memoir' nine times. Hale studied for many years at the rate of sixteen hours a day, and when wearied with the study of the law, he would recreate himself with philosophy and the study of the mathematics. Hume wrote thirteen hours a day while preparing his 'History of England.' Montesquieu, speaking of one part of ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... said my Uncle Peter; "solitude is a thing which a man hardly ever enjoys by himself. He may practise it from a sense of duty. Or he may take refuge in it from other things that are less tolerable. But nine times out of ten he will find that he can't get a really good day to himself unless he shares it with some one else; if he takes it alone, it will be a heavy day, a chain-and-ball day,—anything but a ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... from you, and then imagine every bit of that distance stretching down under you, instead of straight before you. Perhaps in this way you may gain an idea of the depth of the ocean; but just consider the height of the air—which, I'm told, is a sort of envelope about the earth—more than nine times the depth of the ocean! Yet, what a wee bit of a way toward the moon would those thirty-six miles take us! And from the earth to the moon is only a very little step on the long way ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... of such a terror lasts longer than its cause. Even in the symbols used there was an added significance of alliteration. 'For ever' is given in the hieroglyphics as 'millions of years'. This symbol was repeated nine times, in three groups of three; and after each group a symbol of the Upper World, the Under World, and the Sky. So that for this Lonely One there could be, through the vengeance of all the Gods, resurrection in neither the World of Sunlight, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... something she got out of test books and memorandums, because I don't know her people or yet how much she'd had to do with them. It was the way it come out that impressed me. First place, she didn't go into trance. That's a fake to impress dopes, nine times out of ten. If you ever git anything real from me, you'll git it out of half trance. Then she didn't feel around an' fish, an' neither did she hit the bull's eye every time. She'd get the truth all tangled up. John would say a true thing, ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... limits of this expansion is, to my mind, hopeless. The problem is one to be worked out by experiment,—that is, by many generations and by repeated blundering. A fool, said Erasmus Darwin, is a man who never makes an experiment; an experiment is a new mode of action which fails in its object ninety-nine times out of a hundred; therefore, wise men make more blunders, though they also make more discoveries than fools. Now, experiments in government and social organisation are as necessary to improvement as any other kind of ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... chaste Laodamia, Portia true, Evadne, Argia, Arria, and many more Merited praise, because that glorious crew Coveted burial with their lords of yore, How much more fame is to Victoria due? That from dull Lethe, and the river's shore, Which nine times hems the ghosts, to upper light Has dragged her lord, in death and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Kausika, having received those numerous boons ruled his kingdom like a father. Some time after when king Kansa was slain by Vasudeva, an enmity arose between him and Krishna. Then, O Bharata, the mighty king of Magadha from his city of Girivraja, whirling a mace ninety-nine times, hurled it towards Mathura. At that time Krishna of wonderful deeds was residing at Mathura. The handsome mace hurled by Jarasandha fell near Mathura at a distance of ninety-nine yojanas from Gririvraja. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... Swerga renounce?" It is! it is! Yamen, thine hour is nigh: Like as an eagle claws an asp, Veeshnoo has caught him in his mighty grasp, And hurl'd him, in spite of his shrieks and his squalls, Whizzing aloft, like the Temple fountain, Three times as high as Meru mountain, Which is Ninety-nine times as high as ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... digit relations which I have yet noticed, that in the first 110 digits of the square root of 2, the number 7 occurs more than twice as often as either 5 or 9, which each occur eight times, 1 and 2 occurring each nine times, and 7 occurring no less than ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... yet somebody must starve. Reckless Istar, non-moral Nature, would have riven the ethical fabric. I was once talking with a very eminent physician* about the vis medicatrix naturae. "Stuff!" said he; "nine times out of ten nature does not want to cure the man: she wants to put him in his coffin." And Istar-Nature appears to have equally little sympathy with the ends of society. "Stuff! she wants nothing but a fair field and free play for her ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... instead of to the unavoidable antagonisms of nature. "If," continues this writer, "a pen drops from our fingers, or a penny rolls from our grasp, the former, of course, falls on our new white dress, while the latter, nine times out of ten, goes directly to the nearest grating, crack ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... are attributed to Talleyrand which were really said by somebody else. But they would not be so attributed if Talleyrand had been a fool, still less if he had been a fable. That fictitious stories are told about a person is, nine times out of ten, extremely good evidence that there was somebody to tell them about. Indeed some allow that marvellous things were done, and that there may have been a man named Arthur at the time in which they were done; but here, so far as I am concerned, the ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... enough. But she ain't so practical as Irene. She's more up in the clouds—more of what you may call a dreamer. Irene's wide-awake every minute; and I declare, any one to see these two together when there's anything to be done, or any lead to be taken, would say Irene was the oldest, nine times out of ten. It's only when they get to talking that you can see Pen's got twice ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... on steadily, in a low monotone, broken by stifled sobs. The dreary rhythm of the repetition may possibly have assisted. As she mentioned fearfully that nine times eleven were ninety-nine, Miss Greene pointed stealthily toward the table. Mrs. Korner, glancing up fearfully, saw that the eyes of her lord and master were closed; heard the rising snore that issued from his head, ...
— Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies • Jerome K. Jerome
... the question of banns, stumble not over that straw, brother, for I will publish them." So saying, he called the banns; and, says the old ballad, lest three times should not be enough, he published them nine times o'er. Then straightway he came down from the loft and forthwith performed the marriage service; and so Allan and Ellen were ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... sneer at such people, to call them "cranks," but indisputably they had the heroic spirit, the will to endure obloquy for their opinions. "I suppose," he reflected, "the reason why one feels so angry with such people is partly that nine times out of ten they're in the right, and partly that ten times out of ten they've got the pluck we haven't got!" And he remembered that Witterton, a journalist whom he had met at the office of the Morning Record, had ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... particular Rajah to be a "nine-gun" and a "three-step" man. Bang go the cannon from Fort William nine times, and the Viceroy, in full uniform with decorations, duly advances three steps on the gold carpet to greet his visitor. The Viceroy seats himself on his silver-gilt throne at the top of the three steps, the visiting Rajah in his silver chair being one step lower. The two suites ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... fact she takes to a grande passion, It is a very serious thing indeed: Nine times in ten 't is but caprice or fashion, Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead, The pride of a mere child with a new sash on, Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed: But the tenth instance will be a tornado, For there's no saying what they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Polar Journey and their organization seemed to have failed. Did it fail? Scott said No. "The causes of this disaster are not due to faulty organization, but to misfortune in all risks which had to be undertaken." Nine times out of ten, says the meteorologist, he would have come through: but he struck the tenth. "We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint." No ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... rogue, your sarvant, who came like a tief, and stole away my property, and made her believe I was a taylor; and that she was going to marry the ninth part of a man: but the devil burn my soul, if ever I catch him on the mountains of Tulloghobegly, if I don't shew him that I'm nine times as good a man as he, or e'er ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... girl's veins when the voice behind her said "just right." I think she always chuckled a little, and hugged her stomach. So the story progressed, and the little girl got through her toilet without crying, owing to the wonder-working voice and its marvellous adaptation of climaxes to emergencies. Nine times out of ten, it was the story of The Three Bears she demanded when, with the appearance of brush and comb, the voice asked, "Which story ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... because it was so. My tub had no plumbing in it to get out of order. It hadn't any flights of stairs in it that had to be climbed after dinner, or late at night when I came home from the club. It had no front door with a wandering key-hole calculated to elude the key ninety-nine times out of every hundred efforts to bring the two together and reconcile their differences, in order that their owner may get into his own house late at night. It wasn't chained down to any particular neighborhood, as are most brownstone fronts. If the neighborhood ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... At last, if he has a boat with him, he may make some place where he has a clear view right across to low trees, tiny from their distance, similarly half swamped upon a further shore, and behind them a low escarpment of bare earth. That is the Mississippi nine times out of ten, and to an Englishman who had expected to find from his early reading or his maps a larger Thames it seems for all the world like a stretch of East Anglian flood, save that it is so ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... nine times out of ten he paid dearly for his attempts at rebellion. When Mlle. Blanche turned her cold and steel-like eyes upon him with a certain peculiar expression, his courage evaporated. Her weapon was irony; and knowing his weak points, she struck ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... hand, it is the verb that makes language live. Nine times out of ten the verb is the operative word giving motion to the sentence. Hence, placing the verb is of first importance in giving ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... people who do not live in quotation marks most of their lives. They would die in them and go to heaven in them, if they could. Nine times out of ten it is some one else's heaven they want to go to. The number of people who would know what to do or how to act in this world or the next, without their quotation marks on, is getting more ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... cheapen yourselves by lack of purpose in life," says Rena L. Miner. "You show commendable zeal in pursuing your studies; your alertness in comprehending and ability in surmounting difficult problems have become proverbial; nine times out of ten you outrank your brothers thus far; but when the end is attained, the goal reached, whether it be the graduating certificate from a graded school, or a college diploma, for nine out of every ten it might as well be added thereto, 'dead ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... punishment. The Thing-men were silent, and being urged, on a promise of perfect impunity, to state their sentiments, they left the decision to the king, who adjudged himself to pay 69 talents of gold, more than nine times the ordinary pecuniary mulct in such ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... he gave the name of a driver in the firm's employ. This driver, he thought, would vouch for him. A clerk sought out the driver, and asked him if the applicant was honest. 'Honest?' the driver said. 'Why, his honesty's been proved again and again. To my certain knowledge he's been arrested nine times for stealing and ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... that hadn't chipped in would feel so bad because they weren't included in my outburst of gratitude that nine times out of ten they would sneak out and try to break into ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... total area: 82.217 million sq km comparative area: slightly less than nine times the size of the US; second-largest of the world's four oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, but larger than Indian Ocean or Arctic Ocean) note: includes Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Caribbean Sea, Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, Drake Passage, ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... highest grades are accessible to all, for every five or six men who take the lead or command others, one hundred thousand must follow or be commanded. This makes it vain to tell every conscript that he carriers a marshal's baton in his sack, when, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, he discovers too late, on rummaging his sack, that the baton is not there.—It is not surprising that he is tempted to kick against social barriers within which, willing or not, he is enrolled, and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in our forty-nine jurisdictions we have been going forty-nine times over the experience of England and other countries, in connection with each effort to force up the competitive level. We have seemed to be quite unable to apply the most obvious lessons of experience either ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... this: the accidental gun death rate of children under 15 in the United States is nine times higher than in the other 25 industrialized nations—combined. Technologies now exist that could lead to guns that can only be fired by the adults who own them. I ask Congress to fund research in Smart ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Leonard, "is with ourselves. We assume every boy to have the soul of a professor, and every girl a genius for music. We pack off our sons to cram themselves with Greek and Latin, and put our daughters down to strum at the piano. Nine times out of ten it is sheer waste of time. They sent me to Cambridge, and said I was lazy. I was not lazy. I was not intended by nature for a Senior Wrangler. I did not see the good of being a Senior Wrangler. Who wants a world of Senior Wranglers? Then why start every ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... won't tell. By the way, this binding to secrecy is a very bad practice, however delightful. It places too great a responsibility on one's friend, leads her into temptation, makes her curious, and, in nine times out of ten, one has no right to tell one's self, or one ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... sell the copyright of his books, but he was prevented from doing so by his publisher, who pressed upon him a sum of money to meet his temporary wants. During the first year of his marriage, his house was nine times in the possession of bailiffs, his door was almost daily beset by duns, and he was only saved from gaol by the privileges of his rank. All this, to a sensitive nature such as his, must have been gall and bitterness; while his wife's ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... fair to see, Nine times folded in mystery: Though baffled seers cannot impart The secret of its laboring heart, Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, And all is clear from east to west. Spirit that lurks each form within Beckons to spirit of ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... endure the monotony, the emptiness out here. Yes, and wait for a chance to hunt. Even though, nine times out of ten, it turned out to be a wild goose-chase. During the past year or so Mike had hunted nothing but legends and rumors, spent his time ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... coming down the Wabash River (Indiana), when, as it happens nine times out of ten, the steam-boat got aground, and that so firmly, that there was no hope of her floating again till the next flood; so I took my wallet, waded for two hundred yards, with the water to my knees, till I got safe on shore, upon a thick-timbered bank, full of rattle-snakes, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... nearly all the region consists of an immense low plain, intersected by rivers or arms of the sea. A reference to the physical geography of Europe shows you that the great northern plain, containing nine times the area of France, or about one half the area of Europe, extends from the Ural Mountains to ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... characteristic epistle: "Many thanks, my dear sir, for your kind present of game. If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is that of roast pheasant and bread sauce; barn-door fowls for dissenters, but for the real churchman, the thirty-nine times articled clerk, the pheasant, the pheasant.—Ever ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... we will quote from the treatise entitled, "What Is the Soul?" by D. S. Warner: "The words 'eternal life,' as the great gift of God to men, occur in the New Testament just twenty-nine times, and in every instance the word eternal is derived from the Greek word aionios; the same word which tells how long the punishment of the wicked shall last in Mat. 25:46, and elsewhere. The words 'everlasting life' and 'life everlasting' occur ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... these mortals be!" exclaims Puck in A Mid-summer Night's Dream. And well might the fairy marvel who sees folk vexing themselves over matters that nine times out of ten come to nothing. Much wiser is the man who smiles at misfortunes, even when they are real ones and affect him personally. Charles Lamb once cheerfully helped to hiss off the stage a play he himself ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... and sunset A clear sunset is always a good sign; an obscured sun, just at the moment of going down after a bright day, bodes storm. There is much truth, too, in the saying that if it rain before seven, it will clear before eleven. Nine times in ten it will turn out thus. The best time for it to begin to rain or snow, if it wants to hold out, is about mid-forenoon. The great storms usually begin at this time. On all occasions the weather is very sure to declare itself before eleven o'clock. If you are going on a picnic, or are going ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... white-thorn, upon the green grass, and Merlin laid his head upon the damsel's lap, and fell asleep. Then the damsel rose, and made a ring with her wimple round the bush, and round Merlin, and began her enchantments, such as he himself had taught her; and nine times she made the ring, and nine times she made the enchantment, and then she went and sat down by him, and placed his head again ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... management of German military affairs he had seen but slight changes in their policy: Mass—overwhelming mass; sudden momentous onslaught, and, above all, an attack so quick that your adversary could not regain his feet. It worked nine times out of ten, and when it didn't it was usually better than taking the defensive. General von Helmuth having an approved system was to that extent relieved of anxiety, for all he had to do was to work ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... and girls graduate from grammar school they may come into contact with such agencies as secret societies—which nine times out of ten are questionable—and while we realize that there is a contention both for and against these organizations, we may dismiss the subject here by simply adding that we have known little special good to come out of ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... form'd in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks, Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemies, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance, Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone, They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing and seal, gave up their arms and march'd back ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... he has taken. The Wardens take him by the hand, and place him in a blue elbow chair, opposite to the Grand Master, who demands from him all the words, from an Entered Apprentice upwards; and after he has satisfied the Grand Master, and is found worthy to hold a sceptre, they make him travel nine times 'round the Lodge, beginning in the South, and then by nine square steps he advances to the throne, and walks over two drawn swords, laid across. There must be a pot with burning charcoal close by the throne, that the candidate may feel the heat of the fire while taking ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject of chemical affinity!" This is very fine; but it should be observed that no astronomer would have made such remark, especially to any journal of Science; for the earth, in the sense intended, is not only thirteen, but forty-nine times larger than the moon. A similar objection applies to the whole of the concluding pages, where, by way of introduction to some discoveries in Saturn, the philosophical correspondent enters into a minute schoolboy account of that planet—this to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... carefully directed. He was not discouraged in his varied activities; but the bigger practical principles of American life were inculcated. These may be very briefly stated. An American must not idle; he must direct his energies toward success; success means making one's way in life; nine times out of ten, for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, that means the business world. To seize the business opportunity; to develop that opportunity through the business virtues of attention to detail, industry, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... good quality is dissolved in its own weight of water, the operation being conducted in a dark room. To the solution one and a half per cent. of bichromate of potash is added, which has previously been dissolved in a little water. A quantity of very fine emery, equal to nine times the weight of the gelatine, is [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'itimately'] intimately mixed with the gelatine solution. Pulverized flint may be substituted for emery. The mass is molded into any desired shape, ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... abroad. The ghosts had to be driven out of the house, and Ovid (Fasti, v. 432) relates how the head of the family arose at midnight, and with feet unfettered by shoon or sandals, and with washen hands traversed his house beckoning against the ghosts with fingers joined to thumb. Nine times with averted glance he spat a black bean out of his mouth and cried: "With these I redeem me and mine.'' The ghosts followed and picked up, or perhaps entered into the beans. Then he washed afresh, and rattled his brass vessels, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... months of uneventful wanderings, I became aware of a singular phenomenon. I find myself, for some obscure reason, always returning to the same spot. I was nine times in Rome, twice in Florence and Viareggio and Olevano and Anticoli and Alatri and Licenza and Soriano, five times at Valmontone, thrice at Orvinio; and if I did not go a second time to Scanno and other places, there may be a reason for it. Why this perpetual revisiting? How many ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... toward me, and at twenty paces crouches for a spring. Laying his cat-like head almost on the ground, his round eyes flashing fire, and his tail angrily waving to and fro, he looks savage and dangerous. Crouching behind the bicycle, I fire at him again. Nine times out of ten a person will overshoot the mark with a revolver under such circumstances, and, being anxious to avoid this, I do the reverse, and fire too low. The ball strikes the ground just in front of his head, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... will be known; and nobody will take it upon your own word. Never imagine that anything you can say yourself will varnish your defects, or add lustre to your perfections! but, on the contrary, it may, and nine times in ten, will, make the former more glaring and the latter obscure. If you are silent upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, nor ridicule, will obstruct or allay the applause which you may really deserve; but if you publish your own panegyric upon any occasion, or in any shape whatsoever, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... herself in French, called Harry Clavering a lout, a fool, an awkward, overgrown boy, and a pig. She declared him to be a pig nine times over, then shook herself in violent disgust, and after that betook herself ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... selfe haue all the other, And the very Ports they blow, All the Quarters that they know, I'th' Ship-mans Card. Ile dreyne him drie as Hay: Sleepe shall neyther Night nor Day Hang vpon his Pent-house Lid: He shall liue a man forbid: Wearie Seu'nights, nine times nine, Shall he dwindle, peake, and pine: Though his Barke cannot be lost, Yet it shall be Tempest-tost. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... conventional myth. It was three o'clock. He had been on board only nineteen or twenty hours, and already found it a petty hardship. "If the Roland doesn't make better time," he calculated, "I shall have to go through the same difficulties of existence eight or nine times twenty-four hours. But I will get back to land and remain there, while Pander, the cabin-boy, will have to return across the ocean a few days ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... exclaimed Mr. Tolman, "did such a book get into this library? And where on earth did the person spring from who would want to take it out? And not only want to take it," he continued, as he examined the entry regarding the volume, "but come and have it renewed one, two, three, four—nine times! He has had that book for ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... Nine times in ten the town's a hollow thing, Where what things are is naught to what they show; Where merit's name laughs merit's self to scorn! Where friendship and esteem that ought to be The tenants of men's hearts, lodge ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... native mason, who works for the farmers, putting up pig-styes, mending walls, and doing small jobs of that kind. This is the builder who engages to come on Saturday afternoons or in the evenings, while the would-be householder himself is the hod-bearer and mixes the mortar. Nine times out of ten the site for the cottage is chosen so as to have a ditch at the back. This ditch acts at once as the cesspool and the sewer, and, unless it happens to have a good fall, speedily becomes a nuisance to ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... "And ninety-nine times out of a hundred he's as shrewd as his reputation calls for," interrupted Orcutt, "but this is the hundredth time! He is so dead sure he is right that I don't suppose he has examined his papers in years. John McNabb makes damned few mistakes—I've been more than twenty years ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... The public-house good, you mean." The Admiral answered nine times out of ten, being easily led from the track of his wrath, and tired of telling Swipes that he was not a lord. "How many times more must I tell you, Swipes, that I hate that Jacobin association? Can you tell me of one seaman belonging to it? A ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... scamp," he said, "I have sworn an oath to high God to succour the weak, to right wrong, and to serve ladies. Nine times under the moon I sware it, watching my arms before the cross on Starning Waste. Judge you, therefore, whether I intend to keep it or not. As for your daughter, she can tell you whether some part of it I have not kept even now. But understand me, that I do not marry on compulsion ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... always assume that the only person who hates the wife's lover is the wife's husband? Nine times out of ten the person who most hates the wife's lover is the wife. Who knows what insolence or treachery he had ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... title, which is virtually the conclusion, or what Twain termed the "nub"? The understanding of it implies the reading of the joke first, and yet it is hung at the very beginning in heavy type, demanding immediate attention. The reader learns rapidly, however, and will not be fooled. Nine times out of ten he will skip the title, complete the article, and then, from habit, unconsciously glance back for the grin in the title, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... warmer than the ordinary freezing mixture, after you lift the can or mold, wipe off the salt, hold it for a minute under the cold water spigot, then quickly wipe the top and bottom and remove the lid. Loosen the pudding with a limber knife, hold the mold a little slanting, give it a shake, and nine times out of ten it will come out quickly, having the perfect shape of the can or mold. If the cream still sticks and refuses to come out, wipe the mold with a towel wrung from warm water. Hot water spoils the gloss of puddings, and unless you know exactly how ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer
... the girl in his arms. She was flushed and joyful, and her eyes were as bright as stars. "Paul, darling," she said, as they entered the sitting-room, where she was struggling with the accounts, "I'm so glad you are here. What's nine times nine?" ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... compelled to abandon the steamboat and tramp out over the ice. There were irritating delays. Twice the engines broke down and had to be tinkered up, and each time there were snow flurries to warn them of the imminence of winter. Nine times the W.H. Willis essayed to ascend the Five-Finger Rapids with her impaired machinery, and when she succeeded, she was four days behind her very liberal schedule. The question that then arose was whether or not the steamboat Flora would wait for her above the Box Canon. The stretch of water ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... exhausts all his resources, devotes his whole time, capacity and ingenuity to the work in hand; the hope of reward stimulates him—the love of fame urges him on—the opposition of rivals animates his exertions—and the expectation of applause sweetens his labours—and yet, nine times out of ten, he fails. Mr. Dunlap, of this city, has written volumes of plays, and written well, "excellent well," but he made nothing; nay, he hardly obtained that civic wreath which he fairly earned. Barker, of Philadelphia, ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah
... pillar should be nine times as high as it is broad—that is to say, if it is one braccio thick, according to rule it should be nine braccia high—then, if you place 100 such pillars together in a mass this will be ten braccia broad and 9 high; and if the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... of you will object to taking a glass of water nine times a day. Do not drink ice water, nor take water with meals. Liquids taken while eating will bloat you, make you fat, or make it impossible to assimilate your food properly, and that will keep you underweight. Take a ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... seeds having a thinner integument, and that would enable the seeds of that plant to germinate a little quicker than those of any of the others, and those seeds would most inevitably extinguish the forty-nine times as many that were ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... beetles, and other insects; the pythons and larger serpents feed upon such animals as hares, birds, and the young of either antelopes, deer, pigs, &c. Although a snake if trodden upon might by a spasmodic impulse inflict a bite, it would nine times out of ten endeavour to escape. The idea of any snake wilfully and maliciously premeditating an attack upon a man is quite out of the question, unless it has been either teased or excited by a dog when hunting. The same principle will hold good in the case of animals. No snake that feeds only ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... welcome. All this is admirable; but if a Mussulman finds the means of appearing as hospitable as laws and customs require, without sacrificing an obolus, or even while gaining a large sum of money, fie upon virtue, and long live hypocrisy! And such is the case ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Your host overwhelms you while you sojourn beneath his roof; but if at your departure you do not pay him twenty times the value of what he has given you, he will wait until you have crossed his threshold, and consequently ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... commandment represents not the caprice of a community, a race or a divinity, but some (real or imaginary) utility of a less immediate kind. So much for the meaning of good when implying standards and commandments; ninety-nine times out of a hundred there is, however, no such implication, and good means nothing more than satisfactory in the way of use and advantage. Thus a good road is a road we prefer because it takes us to our destination quickly ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... never could be. Black whiskers and a round face sometimes have that kind of look. "Mustn't be cast down! No need. Everybody gets a tumble from horseback once or twice in his life. I've had it seven times. Not pleasant; but it don't hurt you much, nine times in ten." ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... of Little War, as we know it, became possible with the invention of the spring breechloader gun. This priceless gift to boyhood appeared somewhen towards the end of the last century, a gun capable of hitting a toy soldier nine times out of ten at a distance of nine yards. It has completely superseded all the spiral-spring and other makes of gun hitherto used in playroom warfare. These spring breechloaders are made in various sizes and patterns, but the one used in our game is that known in England as the four-point-seven ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... increases with the density or massiveness of its molecule,—indeed, the value of this constant is one of the methods whereby matter displays its interaction with and loading of the free ether of space,—and any such density as the conventional nine times that of hydrogen for the molecule of water would be wholly unable to explain ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... hope, sir, there'll be no bungling in anything that the Proserpine undertakes. Nine times in ten an English man-of-war succeeds when she makes a bold dash in boats against one of these picaroons. This lugger is so low in the water, too, that it will be like stepping from one cutter into another ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... grouped the fireworks together and let them off. In the hands of any other pyrotechnist the squibs would have failed to light, the rockets would have refused to ascend, and the "nine-bangers" would have exploded but once or twice only, instead of nine times. The artist of the display being no more, and the fireworks themselves having gone out, it is perhaps not to be regretted that the cases of the squibs and the tubes of the rockets have not been carefully kept. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... closely united. Shakespeare uses this word nine times,—four times as an adjective and five times as a verb. With regard to the omission of -ed in participial forms, see ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... world, do you call the works of God silly? Remember, kind mother, and don't forget it, if you fail to teach your children, boys or girls, these important lessons early in life, they will learn them from other sources, perhaps long ere you dream of it, and ninety-nine times out of one hundred they will get improper, perverted, impure and vile ideas of these important truths; besides you nave lost their confidence and you will never regain it in these matters. They will never come to mamma for information on these subjects. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... may be reminded that the word [Greek: episkiazein], the phrase [Greek: dunamism hupsistou], and the construction [Greek: eperchesthai epi], are all characteristic of St. Luke: [Greek; episkiazein] occurs once in the triple synopsis and besides only here and in Acts v. 15: [Greek: hupsistos] occurs nine times in St. Luke's writings and only four times besides; it is used by the Evangelist especially in phrases like [Greek: uios, dunamis, prophaetaes, doulos hupsistou], to which the only parallel is [Greek: hiereus tou Theou ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... the race. The total number of these was 123, of whom thirty-eight came through an illegitimate granddaughter, and eighty-five through legitimate grandchildren. Out of the thirty-eight, sixteen have been in jail, six of them for heinous offences, one of these having been committed no less than nine times; eleven others led openly disreputable lives or were paupers; four were notoriously intemperate; the history of three had not been traced, and only four are known to have done well. The great majority of the women consorted with criminals. As to the eighty-five legitimate ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... they walked none of them knew. They had turned many corners, and their conversation had covered a wide field—always, however, turning upon some military subject—when a church clock tolled out nine times. ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... labors were very great. He was called upon to explain or defend the details of the scheme, and had something to say about every article of consumption included in, or excluded from, the list. He spoke one hundred and twenty-nine times, chiefly on themes connected with the new fiscal legislature. He demonstrated his capacity for grasping all the most complicated details of finance, and also the power of comprehending the scope and necessities of the commercial ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... that the charges brought forward by the other side involve the consideration of matters quite foreign to the pursuits with which I am ordinarily occupied; but, in that respect, I am only in the position which is, nine times out of ten, occupied by counsel, who nevertheless contrive to gain their causes, mainly by force of mother-wit and common-sense, aided by some ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the field-path, a covey of umbrellas! He had been standing at the window for the last half-hour, his hands in his pockets, and his mouth often contracting itself into the traditional sin of a whistle, but as often checked into sudden gravity—ending, nine times out of ten, in a yawn. He looked askance at Osborne, who was sitting near the fire absorbed in a book. The poor squire was something like the little boy in the child's story, who asks all sorts of birds and beasts to come and play with ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... been to Dublin? They must all come over there some day, and he would show them some Irish sport. He always went to Ireland for the fishing, and he came to Paris for the new Offenbach things. They always brought them out in Dublin, but he couldn't wait. He had been nine times to hear La Pomme de Paris. Madame de Cintre, leaning back, with her arms folded, looked at Lord Deepmere with a more visibly puzzled face than she usually showed to society. Madame de Bellegarde, on the other hand, wore a fixed smile. The marquis said that among light operas ...
— The American • Henry James
... penniless artist-hero and a pound-full other; and that in the breast of the p.a.h., between the flesh-pots of commerce and the world-well-lost-for-Chelsea. It is typical of Mr. OHLSON'S care that, though one would in such a situation nine times out of ten be safe in backing Art for the double event, he makes so even a match of it between Hubert and Ralph that he leaves the heroine ringing the door-bell of the one immediately after kissing the other. You observe that I was perhaps really more interested in the contest than my opening ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... landscapes in numbers surpassing imagination. There Cocytus creeps to the seat of doom, his waves emitting doleful wails. Styx, nine times enfolding the whole abode, drags his black and sluggish length around. Charon, the slovenly old ferryman, plies his noiseless boat to and fro laden with shadowy passengers. Far away in the centre grim Pluto sits on his ebony throne and surveys the sad subjects of his dreadful domain. By ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the best politico-diplomatic style. I had to read it nine times before I could find out what it was about. When I did find out I made a translation of it into the English of ordinary life, so as to make quite sure of not acting beyond my instructions. I was first of all complimented on not being a party ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... putting him on the trail afresh—after the coroner, and after this Humpo like that, had been on to him for a bit, Sabre absolutely couldn't speak. He was like he had a constriction in his throat. There was nothing he could say but begin all his sentences with, 'Look here—Look here—'; and nine times out of ten incapable of anything to ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Aides there were four great rivers, three of which had to be crossed by all the shades. These three were Acheron (sorrow), Cocytus (lamentation), and Styx (intense darkness), the sacred stream which flowed nine times round these realms. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... the Noise of Ancoras was as loud as before, and she was again obliged to speak it twice: the third Night it was still called for a second time; and, in short, contrary to all other Epilogues, which are dropt after the third Representation of the Play, this has already been repeated nine times. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... John Lateran, I went astray, as I do nine times out of ten in these Roman intricacies, and at last, seeing the Coliseum in the vista of a street, I betook myself thither to get a fresh start. Its round of stones looked vast and dreary, but not particularly impressive. The interior was quite deserted; except that a Roman, of respectable ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... through the trip, after accomplishing the incredible feat of travelling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in seventeen minutes, I have really forgotten which. But it was very extraordinary, anyhow. It is worth the price of admission to hear the guide tell the story nine times in succession to different parties, and never miss a word or alter ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... into his throat with fright and hate. But the unknown, insolent machine was already far ahead, and away off on that terrible hill where the carter's horses quivered and stamped, where he had to breathe them nine times and smoked a whole pipe of tobacco before he reached the top, he would see the monster whizzing upward. As with a shout of joy it stormed the ascent, so that it seemed to fly out into the air at the top, before it ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... answered. "The Captain is a man of vast experience. This was not his first visit to Pretoria. Venter has been five times in Pretoria and nine times in Johannesburg under the same conditions. Brenckmann, too, can speak of unique experiences—but I can bet you anything that he ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... in having included in our itinerant library a copy of Mr. Mackail's beautiful translation of "The Georgics." Walt Whitman, talking to one of his friends about his habit of carrying a book with him on his nature rambles, said that nine times out of ten he would never open the book, but that the tenth time he would need it very badly. So I needed "The Georgics" very badly that afternoon, and the hour would have lost much of its perfection had I not been able to take the book from my knapsack, and corroborate my mood, while Colin was ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... own landlady or by the other lodgers in the house. The little apartment was on the ground floor, and Muller's own rooms had a separate entrance opening on to the main corridor almost immediately behind the door. Nine times out of ten, he could come and go without being seen by any one in the house. To-day was the first time, however, that Muller had had occasion to try this particular ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... that two or more trips are necessary to locate a tree and about nine times out of ten when the tree is found it is not considered worthy of propagation. Many amusing incidents and not a few hardships are remembered in these past experiences. During the past three years I have made four trips into southwestern Missouri and southeast Kansas where there are thousands of native ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... his patience often enough, without ever eliciting more than a "Well there's a good deal in what you say; but—" and then followed something which nine times out of ten showed he had gone deeper into the business ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... several warlocks; and each embarking in a riddle or sieve, they sailed "over the ocean very substantially." After cruising about for some time, they met with the fiend, bearing in his claws a cat, which had been previously drawn nine times through the fire. This he delivered to one of the warlocks, telling him to cast it into the sea and cry "Hola!" This was done with all solemnity, and immediately the ocean became convulsed, the waters hissed loudly, and the waves rose ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the political predilection of these belles from their exterior, a stranger would, nine times out of ten, be led into a palpable error. He might naturally conclude them to be attached to a republican system, since they have, in general, adopted the Athenian form of attire as their model; though they have not, in the smallest degree, adopted the simple manners of that ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... founded so-called scientific truths. I have been thrown off my track often by them, and for months at a time. You see a great name, and you believe it. Try the experiment yourself, and you find the result altogether different.... I tell you I'd rather know nothing about a thing in science, nine times out of ten, than what the books would tell me—for practical purposes, for applied science, the best science, the only science, I'd rather take the thing up and go through with it myself. I'd find out more about it than any one could tell me, and I'd be sure of what I know. That's the thing. ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... Flake's was at its height. Bland Van, the President of the nation, had departed with his boys; the punch-bowl had been emptied nine times; and still the cry from our republican society was, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... or specific gravity referred to H as the standard, (Physics) is the ratio of the weight of a given volume of a gas or vapor to the weight of the same volume of H. A liter of steam weighs nine times as much as a liter of H. Its vapor density is therefore nine. For convenience, a definite volume of H is usually taken as the standard, viz., the H atom. The volume of the H atom and that of the half-molecule of H2O, or of any gas are identical, each being ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... tones of the bells, as she prostrated herself before the goddess. She looked like a beautiful fairy herself as she stood with the flaming bunch of incense held high above her head. Three times she prostrated herself and nine times she bent forward, fulfilling all ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... important tributary in China, the Wei-ho, which rises in Kan-suh and flows through the centre of Shen-si. Below the confluence the Hwang-ho enters the plains. According to the Chinese records this portion of the river has changed its course nine times during 2500 years, and has emptied itself into the sea at different mouths, the most northerly of which is represented as having been in about 39 deg. N., or in the neighbourhood of the present mouth of the Peiho, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... do in his picture. For had they been photographed, the chances are that some shadow would have clothed, would have hid, something, and a chance gleam might have concentrated the attention on some particular spot. Nine times out of ten the exposure of the plate would not have taken place in a moment of ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... very young," she said, "but in some ways you are extremely grown-up. I mean, I think you know your own mind very well. I wish very much that your Aunt Jeannie had come back sooner, because she is about nine times as wise as I, and could have advised you instead of me. As it is, since I think you may have to settle a very important question any day, I have got to give you the best advice I can. I think he will propose to you, as I said, any day; indeed, I feel quite certain of it, else it would ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... via Behring's Straits there are several grave objections. The distance from New York to London by a route crossing the three continents of America, Asia, and Europe, is about eighteen thousand miles, or more than nine times as great as that from Newfoundland to Ireland. Of course, the mere cost of constructing a continuous telegraph three-quarters of the distance around the globe, and of maintaining the hundreds of stations that would be necessary ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... he had not done anything. It disposed him to think a happy passivity more sagacious than a restless activity. We should let Fortune perform her part at the wheel in working out her ends, should we not?—for, ten to one, nine times out of ten we are thwarting her if we stretch out a hand. And with the range of enjoyments possessed by Victor, why this unceasing restlessness? Why, when we are not near drowning, catch at apparent straws, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... peculiar habit. Almost any boy can acquire it through much practice, and sometimes it comes in very handy. He was able to impress it upon his mind that he wanted to awaken at about a certain time. Once in a long while this might fail him; but nine times out of ten he could hit it in a most surprising manner. Many persons have proved this perfectly feasible; and although Max began it as an experiment of the control of mind over matter, it had long since passed that stage, and become a ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... by its own accidents, Miss Greendale; and carrying away a spar is one of the accidents one counts on. If it were not for that risk, yachts would always carry on too long. It is a matter of judgment and of attention to gear. The loss of a spar is in nine times out of ten the result either of rashness ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... none to us) conveyed in dreary monographs and hand-books, all of them perform a necessary function nowadays, that of bringing our idle and alien minds into some sort of relation of business with the works of art which we should otherwise, nine times out of ten, fail really ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... you desire the cold to come up out of your chest. One not desiring to place his trust in roots and barks and herbs might turn for aid to the odd numbers, and by reciting an incantation three or seven or nine times might not only regain health, but recover his lost possessions. Or the sufferer might transfer his disease by pressing a bird or small animal to the diseased part and hastily driving the creature away. The ever-willing ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... is quite correct. Dreams, proceeding as they do from organic disturbance, do not come true nine times out of ten. Still, mine have affected my spirits to such an extent, that I think of making some pilgrimage or other to offer up prayers both on your behalf and on ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... stood under the second princess's window nine times nine days and nine times nine nights and tapped for the ninth time at her window, she opened it ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... pressed the matter so far that we almost came into collision, for she asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out her wishes. Of course, we had then no alternative but to accept. We were right in principle, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred we should have proved, by the logic of events, the ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington |
