"Overmuch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I can ascertain nothing. Elvesham was, of course, a profound student of mental science, and all my declarations of the facts of the case merely confirm the theory that my insanity is the outcome of overmuch brooding upon psychology. Dreams of the personal identity indeed! Two days ago I was a healthy youngster, with all life before me; now I am a furious old man, unkempt, and desperate, and miserable, prowling about ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... dignity in his client, an impressiveness in his speech, that silenced remonstrating reason and the cry of long years of comfortable respectability. Mr. Thompson went to church regularly; paid his rates and dues without overmuch, or at least more than common, grumbling. On the surface he was a good citizen, fond of his children, faithful to his wife, devoutly marching to a fair seat in heaven on a path paved by something better than a thousand a year. But here was a man sighting him from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... after you get over being tired and bewildered," said Anne, who, knowing a certain thing that Leslie did not know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... their original positions, as indicated by the parts of the figures that are left rough-hewn and unpainted. They vary a good deal in interest, and can be easily sneered at by those who make a trade of sneering. Those, on the other hand, who remain unsophisticated by overmuch art-culture will find them full of character in spite of not a little rudeness of execution, and will be surprised at coming across such works in a place so remote from any art- centre as Saas must ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... tossing uneasily on his magnificent bed, and broad awake. Such a son-in-law as Thumbling didn't please him overmuch, so he tried to see if he couldn't think of some way of breaking his word, without seeming to do so. For people that call themselves honest, this is by no means an easy task. Put a thief between honor and interest, you won't find him hesitate; but that is because he is ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... centralised bureaucracy to regulate minutely all departments of the national life, the rural Communes, which contain about five-sixths of the population, remain in many respects entirely beyond its influence, and even beyond its sphere of vision! But let not the reader be astonished overmuch. He will learn in time that Russia is the land of paradoxes; and meanwhile he is about to receive a still more startling bit of information. In "the great stronghold of Caesarian despotism and centralised bureaucracy," these Village Communes, containing about five-sixths ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... early in the day, when the streets were still not overmuch crowded, and we climbed up, up to the fifth story, where the good old lady contrived to make the single room her means could afford look as dainty as her bower at home, though she swept it with her own delicate white hands. There was an engraving of the blessed Martyr over the chimmey-piece, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... leaning to extravagance may be held accountable for Mozart's embarrassments, for he was extremely fond of dress, and had a great weakness for lace and watch-chains. But if he indulged his tastes overmuch in this particular, he was no less lavish in regard to giving where he thought help was needed. He could never turn a deaf ear to the appeal of a beggar, and his kindness was frequently imposed upon; even when monetary help ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... other orbs have kept in touch; Their voicings reach me speedily: Thy people took upon them overmuch In sundering them ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... not halted or harkening, we heard overmuch; heard that which brought us to an instant stand and caused even Miss Harper to gaze on me with dismayed eyes and parted lips, and the blood to go thumping through my veins. From a few hundred yards off in the northwest, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... queens with great mourning; and so these three queens sat them down, and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head. And then that queen said: "Ah! dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me? Alas! this wound on your head hath taken overmuch cold." And so then they rowed from the land; and Sir Bedivere cried, "Ah! my lord Arthur, what shall become of me now ye go from me, and leave me here alone among mine enemies?" "Comfort thyself," said King ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... And be it known, now, that the division of that which I kill shall be fair. And no widow nor weak one shall cry in the night because there is no meat, when the strong men are groaning in great pain for that they have eaten overmuch. And in the days to come there shall be shame upon the strong men who have eaten overmuch. I, ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... must maintain that these well-meaning theorists err only in applying a broad distinction with overmuch nicety. There is, after all, a certain quality in a poem of Blake's, or a prose passage of Charlotte Bronte's, which a critic is not only unable to ignore, but which—if he has any 'comparative' sense—he finds himself accounting ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... methodical advance of the British artillery had begun to worry the stronghold overmuch, Bapaume was a hotbed of all the anti-aircraft devilries. We therefore swerved toward the south. Archie was not to be shaken off so easily, and we began a series of erratic deviations as he ringed ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... and which interferes with no duty, is never rebuked by God. He never says,' How long dost thou mourn?' unless sorrow has deepened into accusation of His providence, or tears have blinded us to the duty that ensues. But the true cure for overmuch sorrow is work, and, for vain regrets after vanished good, the welcome to the new good which God ever sends to fill the empty place. His resources are not exhausted because one man has failed. 'There are as good fish in the sea as ever came ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... me a look of triumph, which said as plainly as speech: "Ha! you see now. Our hard-to-manage captain has given in at last. And to whom do you owe this, but to the good boatswain who did his best for you, and did not boast overmuch of his influence?" ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... verse, and which he liked to keep from the newspapers for the magazine. He had a pride in his promptness with copy, and you could always trust his promise. The printer's toe never galled the author's kibe in his case; he wished to have an early proof, which he corrected fastidiously, but not overmuch, and he did not keep it long. He had really done all his work in the manuscript, which came print-perfect and beautifully clear from his pen, in that flowing, graceful hand which to the last kept a suggestion ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... said. "Besides, even if it were to come true, I am sorry to say I've killed lots of men in the way of business and they don't bother me overmuch." ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... disappointment in not moving his heart was a constant source of satisfaction to her enemies. There had reigned in those days a great and unbridled license in the court, and the fact of the daughter of Cyrus loving and being loved by the handsomest of the king's guards, would not of itself have attracted overmuch notice. But the evident innocence of Zoroaster in the whole affair, and the masterly fashion in which Atossa concealed her anger, if she felt any, caused the matter to be completely forgotten as soon as Zoroaster left Shushan, and events had, since then, succeeded each other too rapidly ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... judging maid might win Me to assoil from HER sweet sin. But nought were extreme punishment For that beyond-divine content, When my with-thee-first-giddied eyes Stooped ere their due on Paradise! O hour of consternating bliss When I heavened me in thy kiss; Thy softness (daring overmuch!) Profan-ed with my licensed touch; Worshipped, with tears, on happy knee, Her doubt, her trust, her shyness free, Her ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... the death he died Had overmuch of shame: For this was he who did provide Foul wrong unto his house and name: His daughter, blossom of my womb, He gave unto a deadly doom, Iphigenia, child of tears! And as he wrought, even so he fares. Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell; For by the sword his sin he wrought, And by the sword ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... soon enough apprised, runs to Friedrich with the news,—greets Friedrich with it just alighting from that Silesian run of his own. Friedrich, not without several other things to think of, is naturally sorry at such news; sorry for his own sake even; but not overmuch. Friedrich refuses 'to despatch a party of horse,' and cut out Marechal de Belleisle. "That will never do, MON CHER!'—and even gets into FROIDES PLAISANTERIES: 'Perhaps the Marechal did it himself? Tallard, prisoner after Blenheim, made PEACE, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... question. "You are a good and an honest girl," I said, pulling out my purse; "and you came to this misfortune through trying—too eagerly—to help the young lady. A ten-pound note is not overmuch as compensation for your accident. Take it, and get well. I should be sorry to think you lost a good place through your ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... this book, which I have translated after mine Author as nigh as God hath given me cunning, to whom be given the laud and praising. And for as much as in the writing of the same my pen is worn, my hand weary and not steadfast, mine eyne dimmed with overmuch looking on the white paper, and my courage not so prone and ready to labour as it hath been, and that age creepeth on me daily and feebleth all the body, and also because I have promised to divers gentlemen and to my friends to address to them as hastily as I ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... in the child may come from hysteria in the mother. A drunken father may impel epilepsy, madness or idiocy in the child. Ungoverned passions, from love to hate, from hope to fear, when indulged in overmuch by the parents, may unloose the furies of unrestrained madness in the minds of the children. "The insane may often trace their sad humiliation and utter unfitness for life's duties back through a tedious line of unrestrained ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the girl, "and we lack no courtesy and due attention at their hands, but dear foster-mother, my question is not answered. Maybe it is not to be answered and that I am curious overmuch. Are all men grim, grave, and austere, wearing rugged countenances scored with ancient wounds, and bearing each man upon his shoulders the weight of some fearful responsibility? Are all men like ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... imprudent as to sing, Mother Colas; and it is not to be expected that any good can come of it; but do not be hard upon him, nor scold him. Do not be down-hearted about it; and if Jacques complains overmuch, send a neighbor ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... them and the men of mines, and now they love the Hollander as a man loves a hated cousin, who is a man of his blood, but in nothing like him. But anything was, and is, better than to stand face to face with busy crowds. To have to talk, to argue, to explain to the unsympathetic was overmuch. The veldt called to them: it is their passion. As one labours in London and sinks into a dream, remembering the hills wherein he spends a lonely summer, among Westmorland's fells and by the becks, so the Boer, called cityward, looks back ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... forward thing! Now ain't you awful bold!" Just a glance he paused to give her, And his head was seen to clutch, Then he darted to the river, And he dived to beat the Dutch! While the wrathful maiden panted: "I don't think he was enchanted!" (And he really didn't look it overmuch!) ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... is the purport of a certain historian's dictum, and I have proved the truth of what he says. Edgar used to go to the Place of Pilgrimage long ago in his holidays, but I used not to go with him. I did not sympathize with his veneration overmuch in those times of long ago. But I respected the desire for hero-worship, and helped him thither each year that he wanted to visit his shrine. He used to come up for his long holidays every year from the colony. I had known his father rather ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... seemed to forget himself, the subject and the company, and to become absorbed in the process of his thought; the look was wholly impersonal; I have seen the same in the eyes of portrait- painters. The counts upon which whites have been deported are mainly four: cheating Tembinok', meddling overmuch with copra, which is the source of his wealth, and one of the sinews of his power, 'PEAKING, and political intrigue. I felt guiltless upon all; but how to show it? I would not have taken copra in a gift: how to express that quality by my dinner-table bearing? The rest of the party shared ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quick to note these signs, laid her hand on his shoulder to say, 'these pupils try you overmuch. I know ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... route to Jumburu, and was received without enthusiasm, for he had left a new chief to rule over a people who were near enough to the B'wigini to resent overmuch discipline. But his business was with K'sungasa, for the two days' stay which Bones had made in the village, and all that he had learnt of the old tamer, had been responsible for his reckless promise to ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... call to hurry the thing overmuch. If I recuperate too sudden and show up back home it might look funny, after the way I bellowed about my condition. There's plenty of flour, bacon, and canned stuff in that van. I reckon we'd better get our feet well settled ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... him to write letters," said Peggy; "and really when he reads out anything to me that he has written, it reads like a printed book. As for Miss Thomson's own letter, it deserves to be printed in letters of gold; but mind, you young folk, not to be overmuch set up about being married, and all your friends being so satisfied. It is a great good Providence that you have happened so well; but all folk have not your good luck. You must not look down on your sister Mary—who is the best of the whole bunch of you, I reckon—because ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... "Just a little while ago you were very anxious to meet me. Now that I'm here you don't seem overmuch pleased." Joan was rummaging frantically ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... Everything is already arranged; the musicians are come secretly and quartered out of sight. Roderick has managed the whole business; for he says one ought not to let him always have his own way, or to humour his strange caprices overmuch, especially on such a day ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... the face of the earth. Afterwards it might possibly come out that he, Harrison, had been not altogether unconnected with the business, and then, he was fain to admit, there might be trouble. But he was a youth who never took overmuch heed for the morrow. Sufficient unto the day was his motto. And, besides, it was distinctly worth risking. The main point, and the one with which alone the House would concern itself, was that he had completely taken in, scored ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... room, like some entrapped creature, and sank down on the floor by the window, looking out for the pale, sad blue of the sky which gleamed now and then through the clouds, till the night had quite set in. I did not cry, for I am not given to overmuch weeping, and my heart was too sore to be healed by tears; neither did I tremble, for I held out my hand and arm to make sure they were steady; but still I felt as if I were sinking down—down into an awful, profound despondency, from which I ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... exceeding neatness and taste in dress. He wore the most fashionable clothing, his hair and beard were in perfect order, and his hands were very beautiful. He was, indeed, vain of his slender fingers and gesticulated overmuch. His voice also was a little over-assertive, but his eyes were clear, steady, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... to the white Queen, Macumazahn, and tell her that if she should send me to a place whence there is no return, I who do not love the world, shall not blame her overmuch, though it is true that I should have chosen to die in ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... cargoes of it already, and have paid for them, too; for the savages are so numerous that we dared not try to take it by force. But our captain has tried to cheat them so often, that they're beginnin' not to like us overmuch now. Besides, the men behaved ill the last time we were here, and I wonder the captain is not afraid to venture. But he's afraid ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Bunyan's early days. Some have too readily taken for granted that he was in all respects a reprobate; and others—the chief of whom is Dr Southey— have laboured to shew that there was little in the lad which any would censure, save the righteous overmuch. The truth is, that considering his rank of life, his conduct was not flagitious; for he never was a drunkard, a libertine, or a lover of sanguinary sports: and the profanity and sabbath-breaking and heart-atheism which ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... of the birds of day; the drone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of small sounds that seem always to have been but half heard when they have suddenly ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. But nothing of all this was noted in that company; its members were not overmuch addicted to idle interest in matters of no practical importance; that was obvious in every line of their rugged faces—obvious even in the dim light of the single candle. They were evidently men of the vicinity—farmers ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... I, sir squire,' answered the citizen; 'and blithely will I do so. These be the knights of St. Katherine, of Mount Sinai; and they are brave men in hours of danger; albeit, like other Orders, overmuch given to amassing wealth, and more intent on keeping it than keeping ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... came over me a wish that Uldra knew nought about it. And that angered me with myself, because it was plain that I cared overmuch for the company and pleasant voice and looks of this maiden ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... was splendour and wealth, but no great happiness perchance, behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt House with its smoky coronets and ciphers. The feasts there were of the grandest in London, but there was not overmuch content therewith, except among the guests who sat at my lord's table. Had he not been so great a Prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked at indulgently. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... feel so sure of this, yet I was obliged to conceal my anxiety, as overmuch concern about the child would not have been in ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... this, perhaps, is the feeling of many men—men by no means given to morbid gusts of panic—amid a society that laughs overmuch in its amusement and exults in the very lust of change. Nor is their anxiety quite the same as that which has always disturbed the reflecting spectator. At other times the apprehension has been lest ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... Euripides. Its singular beauty has been accurately defined as a mingling of horror and compassion, of terror and curiosity. It is less a drama than one great part, and that part consists of a diseased state of the soul, a morbid conflict of emotions, so that the play becomes overmuch a study in the pathology of passion. The greatness of the role of the heroine constitutes the infirmity of the play as a whole; the other characters seem to exist only for the sake of deploying the inward struggle of which Phedre is the victim. Love and jealousy rage within ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... whom she could respect. Anonyma never talked with us, though she occasionally 'Had a Good Talk.' She never played, but sometimes suggested 'Having a Good Game.' It's different, somehow. You, Older and Wiser without being too old or too wise, might impress Jay a lot, I think, because you don't say overmuch. And I want you to tell her something of what ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... extinguished the light. He said we had not overmuch energy stored, and that what we had we must economise for reading. For a time, whether it was long or short I do not know, there ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... little knot of crooked old ladies who were righteous overmuch, and several sour old maids whose only occupation seemed to be to make remarks on any person who had anything different in dress, manners, or appearance from what they considered the type of the becoming. If it is not good ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... spoils he gave to deck the Dutch; Thy noblest pride, most pure, most brave, To death forlorn and sure he gave; Nor now requires he overmuch Who bids thee ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... been utter'd and written on her, Henrietta the Queen: She was young in a difficult part, on a cruel and difficult scene:— Was it strange she should fail? that the King overmuch should bow down to her will? —So of old with the women, God bless them!—it was, so will ever be still! Rash in counsel and rash in courage, she aided and marr'd The shifting tides of the fight, the star of the Stuarts ill-starr'd. ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... accustomed to call Paul at five o'clock, to milk the cows and perform other chores. He himself did not rise till an hour later. During Paul's sickness, he was obliged to take his place,—a thing he did not relish overmuch. Now that our hero had recovered, he gladly prepared to indulge himself in ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... sunshiny afternoon. What a comfort it is to get out again—to see once more that rarity of rarities, a fine day! We English people are accused of talking overmuch of the weather; but the weather, this summer, has forced people to talk of it. Summer! did I say? Oh! season most unworthy of that sweet, sunny name! Season of coldness and cloudiness, of gloom and rain! A worse November!—for in November the days are short; and shut up in a warm room, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... perfection. Robert, whose ear was not his strong point, did not shine in intoning, and the other curate preached. The impression seemed only to have weakened that of the morning, for Owen's remarks on coming out were on the English habit of having overmuch of everything, and on the superior sense of foreigners in holiday-making, instead of making a conscience of stultifying themselves with double ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... under it pretty well, and there was hope that we could at least contrive to worry along. And we certainly did in a very redoubtable fashion. Perhaps we deserved some of the sarcasm more than our Dutch predecessors in office. We had nothing to boast of in arts or letters, and were given to bragging overmuch of our merely material prosperity, due quite as much to the virtue of our continent as to our own. There was some truth in Carlyle's sneer after all. Till we had succeeded in some higher way than this, we had only the success of physical growth. Our ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... gal," said Sam; "I know it: I feel a good deal the same way myself sometimes; but it helps me along an' stren'thens me up, like, to know that Him that the visitor in jail told me about didn't have no home a good deal of the time, an' not overmuch to eat, an' yet was cheerful like, an' always on His nerve. It braces a fellow up to think somebody's who's been as bad off as himself has pulled through, an' not stole nothin', nor fit with nobody, nor got drunk, but always was lookin' out for other folks. Say, Nan, 'pears ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... such things in turning to that Annunciation of Botticelli. The angel has knelt down vehemently, but drawn himself back, frightened at his own message; moved overmuch and awed by what he has to say, and her to whom he must say it; lifting a hand which seems to beg patience, till the speech which is throbbing in his heart can pass his lips; eagerness defeating itself, passionate excitement turned into awe in this young, delicate, passionate, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... two morning hours were to her a terrible penance, day after day. Practically, she might have found them heavy had they been left to her own disposal, but it was expecting overmuch from human nature to hope that she would believe so without experience, and her lessons were a daily irritation, an apparent act of tyranny, hardening her feelings against the exactor, at the same time that the influence of kindred blood drew her closer to her own family, with ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and took the message from the salver, apparently acting against a sense of the most intense repulsion, and for all that unable to help himself. The message once in his hand he did not seem to concern himself overmuch with its possible import; presently the envelope fell from his inert fingers and fluttered down at Indiman's feet. The latter picked it up and handed it to the young man, who thanked him in a ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... author whose mimic creation agrees in general so perfectly with that of nature, that it is not only wonderful in the great, but opens another scene of amazement to the discoveries of the microscope. We have been charged indeed by a Foreign writer with an overmuch admiring of this Barbarian: Whether we have admired with knowledge, or have blindly followed those feelings of affection which we could not resist, I cannot tell; but certain it is, that to the labours of his Editors he has not been overmuch obliged. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... of Caesar's sweet enticements, and to fly his tyrannical favors: the which they said Caesar gave him, not to honor his virtue, but to weaken his constant mind, framing it to the bent of his bow. Now Caesar on the other side did not trust him overmuch, nor was not without tales brought unto him against him: howbeit he feared his great mind, authority, and friends. Yet on the other side also, he trusted his good-nature, and fair conditions. For, intelligence being brought him one day, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... all buried in soft beds And sealed with dreams and visions, and each dawn Sung to by sorrows, and all night assuaged By short sweet kissed and by sweet long loves For old life's sake, lest weeping overmuch Should wake them in a strange new time, and arm Memory's blind hand to ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... is a lay habit to ascribe overmuch to constipation, it is also true that it does definite harm. For many people a loaded bowel acts as a mood depressant, as illustrated by the Voltaire story. For others it destroys the appetite and brings about an uneasiness that affects ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... always writes well when he is not overmuch trying to write well. If he forbear to covet striking effect, his style has perspicuity, directness, and vigor,—the essentials of all excellent writing,—and to these adds verbal affluence and occasional felicity. But if he be tempted of the Devil to become eloquent, and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... while certainly not his equal in theology, nor making any pretensions to poetry. Although a ripe scholar, he rarely wrote in Latin, and not often in French. His ambition was to do his work thoroughly according to his view of duty, and to ask God's blessing upon it without craving overmuch the applause of men. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was whipped if they didn't do they taskwork, or if they steal off without a pass, but if our marster found a overseer whipped the slaves overmuch he would git rid of him. We was always treated good and kind and well cared ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... quiet that they bring with them, the way in which they indefinably take possession of the beholder, body and soul, that above and beyond their radiant beauty have made them dear to successive generations. And yet we need not mourn overmuch, or too painfully set to work to revise our whole conception of Venetian idyllic art as matured in the first years of the Cinquecento. True, some humanist of the type of Pietro Bembo, not less amorous than learned and fastidious, must have found for ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... is a madness, thrust forth from hell by some fury. He speeds across the earth in hasty flight, and they whom he visits soon discover that he brings no deity with him, but frenzy rather; yet none will he visit except those abounding overmuch in earthly felicity; for they, he knows, in their overweening conceit, are ready to afford him lodgment and shelter. This has been proven to us by many facts. Do we not see that Venus, the true, the heavenly ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... share of notice, the country neighbours welcoming her as her mother's daughter, but most of them saying she was far more like her Aunt Phyllis than her own mother. The dancing and excitement so late at night had, however, tired her overmuch, she had cramp all the remainder of the night, could eat no breakfast the next ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... kind master," he said pleasantly, "that you might cause me a vast amount of unpleasantness just now ... although of a truth, I do not perceive that you would benefit yourself overmuch thereby. On the contrary, you would vastly lose. Your worthy aunt, Mistress Lambert, would lose a pleasant home, and you would never know what you and your brother Richard have vainly striven to find ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Labour Unrest in the Press is to have learnt quite a lot about the methods of popular thought. And among other things I see now much better than I did why patent medicines are so popular. It is clear that as a community we are far too impatient of detail and complexity, we want overmuch to simplify, we clamour for panaceas, we are ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... of the fact that a man of Demming's position wouldn't have to go to overmuch effort to acquire such information, anyway. It ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... soothsayers went forth to the people and expounded to them the mystery of overproduction, and how it was that they must needs perish of thirst because there was overmuch water, and how there could not be enough because there was too much. And likewise spoke they unto the people concerning the sun spots, and also wherefore it was that these things had come upon them by reason of lack of confidence. And it was even as the soothsayers had said, for ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... can, living each day by itself, meeting each new phase of life with confidence and courage. Be not deluded by appearances, nor follow after strange prophets. Let the evolutionary processes work themselves out, and do you fall in with the wave without struggling, and without overmuch striving. The Law is working itself out well—of that be assured. Those who have entered into even a partial understanding and recognition of the One Life underlying, will find that they will be as the chosen people during the changes that are coming to the race. They have attained that which the ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... respectable-looking, because her dress was whole and tolerably clean; but it showed great poverty nevertheless, being frequently mended and patched, and of that indeterminate dull grey to which all colours come with overmuch wear. She seemed to be middle-aged; but as she raised her head to see who had stopped in front of her, Betty was so struck by the expression and tale-telling of it that she forgot the question of age. Age? she might have been a hundred and ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... Sir Gluttony, Sir Envy, and Sir Sloth. Let a man lay those seven low, and he shall have the prize of the day, from the hands of the fairest queen of beauty, even from the Virgin-Mother herself. It is for this that these men mortify their flesh, and to set us an example, who would pamper ourselves overmuch. I say again that they are God's own saints, and I bow my head ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... canoe voyage was prosperous we would gradually lighten the loads by eating the provisions. If we met with accidents, such as losing canoes and men in the rapids, or losing men in encounters with Indians, or if we encountered overmuch fever and dysentery, the loads would lighten themselves. We were all armed. We took no cartridges for sport. Cherrie had some to be used sparingly for collecting specimens. The others were to be used—unless in the unlikely event of ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... effect on the schismatic ball-player that he became in due course an elder, and was distinguished for his severity in dealing with persons absenting themselves from public worship, or giving themselves overmuch to vain amusements. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... which need not trouble us overmuch, since by whatever agent the subject is made clairvoyant, the results are equally curious and informing. Auto-suggestion, at least, can hardly be regarded in the category of objections, since we cannot auto-suggest that which does not first of all arise as an image in ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... flights of wit. The other men stared. This was a new aspect of the stiff-necked young teamster they had known. They did not relish it overmuch. None of them dared talk back to Bela in ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... as sons, pitied their yearning and admired their courage, and wondered over them as a mother wonders over her child, with a certain delight in their novelty. But to Gudrun, they were the opposite camp. She feared them and despised them, and respected their activities even overmuch. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... barbarian, will trade with you, eat with you, and humour you, certainly without betraying his contempt. But the Fiesolano is otherwise; quarrelsome he is, and a little aloof, he will not concern himself overmuch about you, and will do his business whether you come or go. And I think, indeed, he still hates the Fiorentino, as the Pisan does, as the Sienese does, with an immortal, cold, everlasting hatred, that maybe nothing will ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... least serious cases were treated, men who could be got upstairs without too much strain and suffering. On the ground floor one bed was free, as I knew, and it was into that ward I went to tell the news to the matron. Perhaps when my duty was done I did not hurry overmuch to return to my own less interesting post; and I was still in the principal ward when the canvas litter borne by four Red Cross men was carried in. Doctors and nurses pressed forward to meet it, and I flattened myself against the wall, ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... over my manuscript & privileged to improve it; this has fatigued me a good deal, & I have often longed to move up from the dock to the bench & rest myself and fatigue others. My opportunity is come, but I hope I shall not abuse it overmuch. I mean to do my best to make a good magazine; I mean to do my whole duty, & not shirk any part of it. There are plenty of distinguished artists, novelists, poets, story-tellers, philosophers, scientists, explorers, fighters, hunters, followers of the sea, & ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... its rhyme, this passage is overmuch afflicted with youngness to be accepted as the product of any other than Shakespeare's very earliest period. Of like quality to this are other passages scattered through the play. For example, the Countess's speech, ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... the apostle then exhorted his brethren to readmit him to intercourse, and to treat him with kindness and confidence. "Ye ought," says he, "rather to forgive him and comfort him, lest perhaps such an one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... say I, having counted up the cost, This, though I be the feeblest of God's host, The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook, Yet while I love my God the most, I deem That I can never love you overmuch; I love Him more, so let me love you too; Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such I cannot love you if I love not Him, I cannot love Him if I love ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... mixed, even by the practice of virtue and the application of knowledge. Hence even in the cultivation of righteousness the rule, Ne quid nimis, is to be implicitly followed: "Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise."[109] On the other hand, wisdom is not to be despised, for it hardens us against the strokes of Fate, and renders us insensible to the insults of our fellows.[110] It also teaches us the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... well to be overmuch troubled when we see those whom we love fighting a hard battle against inherited tendencies and an evil environment, for the fight, however fierce, is a good sign. Those alone are to be pitied who are drifting, and not resisting. Progress is ever by ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... have had good sport; and enough excitement and fatigue to prevent overmuch thought; and, moreover, I have at last been able to sleep well at night. But unless I was bear-hunting all the time I am afraid I should soon get as restless with this life as with ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... suits the wife. Leonard promises to have very good legs of his own with plenty of staying power. I have given him one or two sharp walks, and I find he has plenty of vigour and endurance. But he is not thirteen yet and I do not mean to let him do overmuch, though we are bent on a visit to a glacier. I began to tell him something about the glaciers the other day, but I was promptly shut up with, "Oh, yes! I know all about that. It's in Dr. Tyndall's book."—which said book he seems to me to have got ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... them, and still it is well to read them. How do we know what will happen? Those old kings and emperors died after doing us all the harm possible, but their sons and grandsons still live, and do not wish us overmuch good, and that which they said then they may say again now, and those who lent their aid to the fathers might incline to help their sons. Here is ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... illiberal. And the prejudice of this clanship, avowedly founded without prejudice, lay in the assumption that life and art suffered a degeneration from the rise of Raphael. In art, as in literature, there is overmuch tilting with names—so the Preraphaelites enlisted ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... wise Than learned overmuch; Better than high are lowly thoughts, For truthful thoughts ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... duty,—"nursemaid to the Doukhobor" was a thrust literally true. His, too, was the task on the plains of seeing that the Mormon doesn't marry overmuch. He brands stray cattle, interrogates each new arrival in a prairie-waggon, dips every doubtful head of stock, prevents forest-fires, keeps weather records, escorts a lunatic to an asylum eight hundred miles ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... for a moment, but her brow soon cleared as she made answer: "I shall be sorry if aught comes to grieve or vex your father; but so long as we are careful to give no just cause for offence, we need not trouble our heads overmuch as to the jealous anger of the Lord of Mortimer. I misdoubt me if he can really hurt us, be he never so vindictive. The king is just, and he values the services of your father. He will not permit ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that of Wepener, was especially a Colonial triumph; there the garrison had been chiefly Cape Colonials, here the majority were Australians of Carrington's first Brigade, the rest being Rhodesians, and it would be difficult to praise overmuch the determination and fine spirit shown by these Colonials in their first opportunity of distinguishing themselves as a corps. Every soldier who saw the place afterwards expressed surprise that they could have held out so long, and it is therefore the more creditable to them to have ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... of the confusion, however, failed for the overmuch of means. "A bottle of brandy was given," said the orator, "instead of a glass!" and the mob's capricious impromptu of carrying the king back with them to Paris, still more than the cowardice of the Duke of Orleans, defeated this deep-laid ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Captain Downton, your overmuch care may work your own harms, and do me and my company no good, and therefore take nothing to heart more than is cause, for I have had and still have my full share. And whereas you allege, you are loth to depart this road without me, I am more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... title, place, or touch Of pension, neither count on praise: It grows to guerdon after-days: Nor deal in watch-words overmuch; ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... had ever seen. Here she had won the affection of all the Sisters, who spoke of her habitually as the "blessed child." They had taught her all the dainty arts of lace-weaving, embroidery, and simple fashions of painting and drawing, which they knew; not overmuch learning out of books, but enough to make her a passionate lover of verse and romance. For serious study or for deep thought she had no vocation. She was a simple, joyous, gentle, clinging, faithful nature, like a clear brook rippling along in the sun,—a ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... certainly appears to contribute to progress by raising the average of the species. The theory seems extreme and one-sided. And yet it has done great service by calling in question the all-sufficiency of natural selection and the modifying power of environment, and by emphasizing, probably overmuch, the importance of initial inherent tendency, whose value has been entirely ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... is the green oak; he will give you a pain in the head if you use him overmuch, a pain in the eyes will come from his ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... Chaumette and Company constitute a kind of Hyper-Jacobinism, or rabid 'Faction des Enrages;' which has given orthodox Patriotism some umbrage, of late months. To 'know a Suspect on the streets:' what is this but bringing the Law of the Suspect itself into ill odour? Men half-frantic, men zealous overmuch,—they toil there, in their red nightcaps, restlessly, rapidly, accomplishing what of Life ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... no illusions as to my power. I was but a Westerner, and it was clear that Miss Haldin would not, could not listen to my wisdom; and as to my desire of listening to her voice, it were better, I thought, not to indulge overmuch in that pleasure. No, I should not have gone to the Boulevard des Philosophes; but when at about the middle of the principal alley I saw Miss Haldin coming towards me, I was too curious, and too honest, ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... little monstrosities, affected and ridiculous, scornful of play, absolutely ignorant, with no trace of spontaneity or childishness, and despairingly pert and forward. The little Jansoulets did not enjoy themselves overmuch in that hothouse for early fruits, notwithstanding the special privileges accorded to their immense wealth; they were really too neglected. Even the Creoles in the institution had correspondents and visitors; but they were never called ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... thing, yet it was perfectly simple. Their very strength, as they held it to be, was their weakness. They were a dozen against one, and each one of them took it for granted that the other eleven were attending to business and that he need not exert himself overmuch. A good many years after, I had that experience as a member of a board of twelve trustees, each one of whom had lent his name but not his work to the cause we were supposed to represent. When we met at the end of that season, and heard how narrow ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Field Book of the Revolution, by BENSON J. LOSSING, (Harper & Brothers,) is a work that cannot well be praised overmuch. There have been an immense number of illustrated and pictorial histories of this country, all or nearly all of which are worthless patchwork; but Mr. Lossing's is a production of equal attractive interest and value. The first volume only has been completed; ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... I should tame her. We met and grew friendly as wild things both. She is a child of Nature, her mind is as pure as the sea. Moreover, Joan walks saint-guided. Folklore and local twaddle does not appeal overmuch to me, as you know, yet the stories drop prettily from her lips and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... making sure. I'm making sure of every little point as I go along, Mr. Shandon. I didn't want there to be a possibility of any one here knowing who I am. It is my own business and I hope that I am not asking overmuch if I request you not to tell any one ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... sixty-eight species of that order. Among these, there were only two of the Carabidae, four Brachelytra, fifteen Rhyncophora, and fourteen of the Chrysomelidae. Thirty-seven species of Arachnidae, which I brought home, will be sufficient to prove that I was not paying overmuch attention to the generally ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... bed I lie, Sleepless, unto Thee I'll cry; When my brain works overmuch, Stay the wheels with ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... remorseless, unsparing freedom, not unmingled with touches of scorn, with which the deformities of mankind are anatomized. The contrast between the right-hearted, well-meaning Claudio, a generous spirit walled in with overmuch infirmity, and Barnardine, a frightful petrification of humanity, "careless, reckless and fearless of what is past, present, or to come," is ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... be a pity if you gentlemen gave way to overmuch expression of optimism. It hardly accords with your actions of ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... position of a man who, being attacked from two sides, has to carry on a furious fight for life, and cannot concern himself overmuch as to whether one or two flowers are trodden down in his neighbour's garden.—PROF. DR. W. DIBELIUS, W.W.E., ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... so sure of his sense of honour, his pure morality, his good principles, his high-toned soul ("True," he said to himself, "I never set up to be one of your righteous-overmuch sort of people, nor a saint like my noble mother and my friend Mrs. Willoughby") that he staggered as he thought of what he was now by the part he was acting. Dishonest, cruel, unjust—he, Reginald Gower; was it possible? Ah! his self-righteousness, ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... Bishop of St. Asaph and of Chichester: published, in 1449, "The Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy." He attacked the Lollards, but was suspected of heresy himself, and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... facts and customs which are no longer known and cannot always be guessed at. Now, thanks to Rashi's commentary, a reader possessing a knowledge of the elements of the language and some slight knowledge of Jewish law, can decipher it without overmuch difficulty. ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... gout in the hand, which prevented him from attending, and obliged the debate to be deferred. Lord Melbourne hopes that the resolution which Lansdowne is to move[38] is put in such a shape as to vindicate our course, and at the same time not to condemn that which has been adopted overmuch, nor to pledge us for ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... of Scottish blood and desert-seasoned, was a cool in-fighter who could take punishment without wincing overmuch. But at the end of the first fortnight of the new time-card, he cornered his chief in the private office and ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... young to care overmuch—save Nan," responded Constance, looking at Anne's white troubled face. "Poor maid! 'tis hard ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... combatants were frankly discussed; but their attitude to each other after the duel was criticised lightly and with caution. It was irreconcilable, and that was to be regretted. After all, they knew best what the care of their honour dictated. It was not a matter for their comrades to pry into overmuch. As to the origin of the quarrel, the general impression was that it dated from the time they were holding garrison in Strasburg. Only the musical surgeon shook his head at that. It went much farther ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... rather, so did creep, With drowsy faltering feet unsure, till Sleep Himself made end of it, with no rude touch Sealing the lips that babbled overmuch. Howbeit the boon of boons most coveted Withholden was, and in that vision's stead Another Dream from its dim hold uprose, Which he who tells the tale shall ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... appears to have guided his people wisely. He continued to exhort them not to care overmuch for riches, but to use their wealth as having it not; and in 1818, "for the purpose of promoting greater harmony and equality between the original members and those who had come in recently," a notable thing was done ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... and done," explained Mme Gabin, "the dear departed did not come up to Monsieur Simoneau. I didn't fancy him overmuch; he was a puny sort of a man, a poor, fretful fellow, and he hadn't a penny to bless himself with. No, candidly, he wasn't the kind of husband for a young and healthy wife, whereas Monsieur Simoneau is rich, you know, and ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola |
