"Plain sailing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... character. There's nothing finer in all the world. And character can only be formed by overcoming difficulties. Every hard lesson you master, or every game you win, helps you to win it. There are plenty of difficulties at school. Nobody finds it plain sailing. When you're cooped up with so many other girls you soon find you can't have all your own way, and it must be a give-and-take system if you're to live peaceably with your fellows. When this great war ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... of Cairo contain everything, but the difficulty is to find where the dispersed articles are stored: there is a something of red-tapeism; but all is plain sailing, compared with what it would be in Europe. The express orders of his Highness Husayn Kamil Pasha, Minister of Finance and Acting Minister of War, at once threw open every door. Had this young prince not taken in the affair a personal interest of the liveliest ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... handle the big one at the Nore. "Now, then, you dogs!"—that's how he began with the men's delegates—"His Majesty will be graciously pleased to hear your grievances: and afterwards I'll be graciously pleased to hang the lot of you and rope-end every fifth man in the Fleet. That's plain sailing, I hope!" says he. The delegates made a rush at him, triced him up hand and foot, and in two two's would have heaved him to the fishes with an eighteen-pound shot for ballast if his boat's crew hadn't swarmed on by the chains ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... No real Moslem would ever be able to hold his tongue about it. They're superstitious about the Dome of the Rock. But ask questions now, if you're not clear; you mustn't be seen speaking in the street or in the mosque, remember. All plain sailing? Come along, then. If you're alive tomorrow you'll ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... political obstacles of so overwhelming a character. None evinced a more unselfish patriotism. The overturn of Tilley in New Brunswick, of which we shall hear presently, was a misfortune quickly repaired. The junction of Brown, Cartier, and Macdonald in Canada ensured for them comparatively plain sailing. But the Nova Scotian leader was pitted against a redoubtable foe in Joseph Howe; for five years he faced an angry and rebellious province; he gallantly gave up his place in the first Dominion ministry in order ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... his married life would not be all plain sailing; but he had by no means realised the gravity and the complication of the difficulties which he would have to face. Politically, he was a cipher. Lord Melbourne was not only Prime Minister, he was in effect the Private Secretary of the Queen, and thus controlled ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... second day of Miss Liston's visit, and she lost no time in beginning to study her subjects. Pamela, she said, she found pretty plain sailing, but Chillington continued to puzzle her. Again, she could not make up her mind whether to have a happy or a tragic ending. In the interests of a tenderhearted public, I pleaded ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... woman for choice, will probably laugh at first. Never mind. Allow a few days for the idea to sink in, and then call again. It is a hundred to one that you will hear that strange manifestations have been observed. After that it will be plain sailing. You will continue to call, always supplying fresh suggestion, until at last, thoroughly unnerved, the tenant will bolt, probably taking refuge in a hotel. That will be your chance. Snatch the place up at once, and there ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... Nathan whispered to Oliver when Richard's head was turned for a moment. "Nothing now but plain sailing. Ah! it's a great day for dear Richard! I couldn't sleep last night on the train for ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... man's experience in an hour. The speed of the eyesight and the hearing, and the continual industry of the mind, produce, in ten minutes, what it would require a laborious volume to shadow forth by comparisons and roundabout approaches. If verbal logic were sufficient, life would be as plain sailing as a piece of Euclid. But, as a matter of fact, we make a travesty of the simplest process of thought when we put it into words; for the words are all coloured and forsworn, apply inaccurately, and bring with them, from former ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them. I hear one prominent woman who was asked last week to dine and meet the Romedeks considered herself insulted, and has struck her would-be hostess' name off her visiting list. So you see it wasn't all plain sailing with the Westington's, and I can hear them decide between themselves to give a "real Bohemian dinner;" that is, ask people who "do things," and whom you sometimes do meet out at houses where they are not particular about ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... not been long in India, had killed tigers before. There would be enough of us, without asking any one else to join. The collector to whom Isaacs had telegraphed was an old acquaintance of his, and would probably go out for a few days with us. It all seemed easy enough and plain sailing. In the course of time we returned to our hotel, dressed, and made our way through the winding roads ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... with some difficulty in the dark, for there were no connecting roads with the halting-places of the battalions, and got on to the main road, whence all was plain sailing, down to the Moulin des Roches, an imaginary mill on the river bank. Over some sloppy pasture fields in dead silence, and we found ourselves on the bank, with a darker shadow plashing backwards and forwards over the river in our front, and some R.E. ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... was all prosperous and sunshine, and what Captain Beaufort would call plain sailing. To Ballymahon the first stage. Do you remember Ballymahon, and the first sight of the gossamer in the hedges sparkling with dew, going there packed into the chaise with your four sisters and me to see the museum of a ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... matter; for a lover's quarrel of that sort is never such a serious affair as the parties involved are apt to think. If only Miss Jones would have the inspiration to go to Berlin or to Stuttgart, or to Halifax, the road to Grover's affections would be comparatively plain sailing. But Miss Jones, in spite of the most pointed hints regarding the superior musical advantages of other cities, persisted in remaining where she was. She practiced with an odious regularity and indefatigable zeal, which knew neither weariness nor discouragement. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... only incidentally managers and men of business: primarily they are highly cultivated artists, quite capable of judging for themselves anything that the most abstruse playwright is likely to put before them, But the plain sailing tradesman who must be taken as the typical manager (for the West end of London is not the whole theatrical world) is by no means equally qualified to judge whether a play is safe from prosecution or not. He may not ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... keels, sails, and shape of hull might have sailed with a "soldier's wind," that is, a wind blowing straight against the ship's side, at right angles to her course. But they must have "made leeway" by going sideways too. This wind on the beam was called a soldier's wind because it made equally plain sailing out and back again, and so did not bother landsmen with a lot of words and things they could not understand when ships tacked against ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... all plain sailing, for Sara was a highly strung child, with the vivid imagination that is the primary cause of so much that is carelessly designated cowardice. But Patrick had been very wise in his methods. He had never rebuked her for lack of courage; he had simply taken ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... all plain sailing on asphalt and macadam, but from the park to the gate of the cemetery and to the turn beyond the mud was so deep and sticky it seemed as if the machine could not possibly get through. If we had attempted to turn about, we would ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... It was plain sailing for a few minutes. The flinty excrescences were as numerous as ever, and he never paused in his ascent until prudence whispered that it was wise to take another breathing spell. It was a source of infinite comfort to feel that when he thus checked himself he was not compelled ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... yourself against questions until you are justified in answering them. To have to admit that you are not Mrs. Horn after you had said you were, would be dreadful, of course. But the other would be all plain sailing. You would go and be married properly, and that would be the end of it. And even if you were obliged to assert your claims as his widow, there would be no objection to saying that there had been reasons for not announcing the marriage. But there is another thing. How are you going to explain your ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... Finley was too familiar with the people of the West, and too well versed in woodcraft, to feel over-confidence, or to believe that it was plain sailing into the haven of absolute safety. If The Panther had cut off the flight of the fugitives to the block-house, he was not the one to permit them to flank the danger by means ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... through easier, Lawson," Mr. Rogers said quietly, "for the fact is, Stillman seems to have got the copper fever as badly as any one else and is as anxious to take a hand as we are to have him. It will be plain sailing now unless we strike some snag with Sterling or Elliott"—referring to the principal "Standard ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... was plain sailing—or punting. The picture of that London cad sprawling in the water, which my approval had created in his mind, had done it. And it was early and late too (there were few visitors that month); down by the Weir below the lock ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... trouble ought to come first," declared Louise. "It is the foundation upon which rest all the mysterious occurrences following, and once we have learned what the great trouble was, the rest will be plain sailing." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... putts in which it is not all plain sailing from the place where the ball lies to the hole. The line of the putt may be uphill or it may be downhill, or the green may slope all the way from one side to the other, or first from one and then the other. There ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... years had been his father's wife and also against a highly respected member of the medical profession. That he would encounter a terrific opposition he did not question for a moment. He was not in the least sure that his case would be plain sailing. He saw himself, his aunt, Chalmers, and, last and hardest to contemplate, Esther in the witness-box—Esther, whose nerves were temporarily shattered by her frightful experience.... Had Therese been a party to the attempt on her life? Whether she had ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... or worse than the majority of their fellows, and these are the ones who are signalled out by the historian for special attention. The people who are always good and always happy have no history, as there is nothing noteworthy to tell of them, life has no tragedies, all is plain sailing, and the whole story can be told in a few words. In a measure the same thing is true of the ordinary man, be he good or bad, for what can be said of him can be said of a whole class, and so the history of the class may be told, but ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... and then a little among themselves, but then 'tis all Gross and plain Sailing, down right taking Arms, calling in Foreign Forces, Assassinations and the like; but these are nothing to the more Exquisite Heads in the Moon. For they have the subtillest Ways with them, that ever were heard of. They ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... capital fellow, now, to see that my ideas were properly carried out; and to overlook the works in their progress before they were sufficiently advanced to be very interesting to ME; and to take all that sort of plain sailing. Then you'd be a splendid fellow to show people over my studio, and to talk about Art to 'em, when I couldn't be bored myself, and all that kind of thing. For it would be devilish creditable, Tom (I'm quite in earnest, I give you my word), to have ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... May, and the boys, or young men I suppose you call them, nicknamed me Miss Atlas, on account of my initials. Now that I have given you a chart of my names to go by, the reading will no doubt be plain sailing in future." ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... course, made lessons much jollier. It is something to know that the person who is teaching you sees that it is not all plain sailing for you, and does not think that it is just your stupidness that makes you not know your ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... my happiness, if you want something to make you feel good. Believe me, young man, it's some. I could sing! Gee, when I think that it's all plain sailing now and no more troubles, I could dance! You don't know what it means to me, putting through this deal. I wish you knew Mary! That's her name. You must come and visit us, sonny, when we're fixed up in the home. There'll always be a ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... looking down from his great height, saw the invalid's face contracted by a sharp spasm, noted that his thin hands gripped upon the arms of the chair so tightly that the finger-nails whitened, and smiled to himself. Here was plain sailing. ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... think we should, and that, thanks to a girl's counter-plotting, I should have pretty plain sailing in spite of Carmona. But because I began to see land ahead, I was the more anxious to give Monica peace of mind; and when we said good-night to the O'Donnels about half-past ten, I set out to carry through the plan I ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... vulgar sort," said he; "but I can't help that. We're getting vulgarly hard up again, and there's an end on 't. Besides, these people deserve it, and can afford it. And don't you run away with the idea that all will be plain sailing; nothing will be easier than getting some stuff, and nothing harder than avoiding all suspicion, as, of course, we must. We may come away with no more than a good working plan of the premises. Who knows? In any case there's ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... 'Things get terribly mixed in this world,' he continued, 'and pleasures mostly lose their flavour before one has a chance of enjoying them. I am thinking that the father of the Prodigal Son did not find it all such plain sailing after the feast was over, and he had time to look into things more closely. That elder brother would not be the pleasantest of companions for many a long day; he would still have a sort of grudge, like ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... then in the height of her beauty, and had cruelly deceived her. To appease the indignation of the younger sister he had got her an introduction to the manager of the Rockingham Theatre, who was about to put on a new Egyptian ballet, and from that time onwards it had been plain sailing for Ada. Later on came a meeting with Leroy, planned by Jasper's connivance; and Adrien, attracted by the woman's ripe beauty, had been blind, so far, to the deficiencies of her mind ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... they worked so tirelessly and earnestly, it was not all plain sailing with the girl campaigners. Yet though they met with many rebuffs, they met very little downright impertinence. Twice Louise was asked to leave a house where she had attempted to make a proselyte, and once a dog was set upon Beth by an irate farmer, who resented ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... telling the duke, and if he considers that I acted wrongly, I must bear his displeasure; but the matter is of no real importance, and does not greatly concern my adventures. Forgive me, if I do not feel justified in telling it. All the rest is plain sailing." ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... all plain sailing, two days since, in the love-storm we want the foregoing sketch of a thunderstorm to illustrate, that was brewing in the firmament of Conrad Vereker's soul. At the point corresponding to the first decisive clap of thunder—wherever it was—Chaos set in in that firmament. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... physical geography. Yet men, adventurous and inquisitive, kept ever pushing forward into the unknown, until now there remain no strange seas and few uncharted and unlighted. The mariner of these days has literally plain sailing in comparison with his forbears of one ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... taken the property in the name of Hubert for purposes of fraud, which could only be established by going into the whole history of the property. Of course, if Browne were so foolish as to put in the defence that Hubert really existed, the case would be plain sailing. If, however, Browne was as astute as the District Attorney believed him to be, he might boldly admit that there was no Hubert except himself, and that in taking title to the property and disposing thereof under that name, he was committing no violation ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... have taken from Japan and China to Mount Ararat. The parable as an historical fact is hedged with impossibilities and so is the whole journey of forty years from Egypt to Canaan; but if we make up our minds to believe in miracles then it is plain sailing from Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, Both Ezra and Jeremiah are said to have written the last book of the Pentateuch, and some, question whether Moses was the author of either. Bishop Colenso also questions ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... know as much about the trail as Wade and I, for neither of us has been over it often. Consequently, when we travel by night, we shall have to go it blind, or rather shall do so after awhile, since all is plain sailing now." ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... seamy side generally, I mean, of course. The labor vote we need help with, and I've brought in Sheehan and Zalinsky to sort of arrange a line of policy that'll round 'em up. With their help we'll control the caucuses. After the caucuses, it's plain sailing." ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... solutions, which I still dismissed as incommensurable with the facts; and in the mystery by which I saw myself surrounded, found a precious stimulus for my courage and a convenient soothing draught for conscience. Even had all been plain sailing, I do not hint that I should have drawn back. Smuggling is one of the meanest of crimes, for by that we rob a whole country pro rata, and are therefore certain to impoverish the poor: to smuggle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all the evidence is at one, and the narrative plain sailing; but now the steering becomes difficult. I will try to keep as nearly as possible to Anne's own statements; though toward the end, ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... and plain sailing. For some days two or three of our men had been complaining of severe headache, giddiness, and violent pains in the spine and between the shoulders. I had been anxious when at Gondokoro concerning the vessel, as many persons while on board had died of the ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... All was not plain sailing for Ruth in either her studies or in the writing of the scenario for "The Heart of a Schoolgirl." The coming examinations in all branches would be difficult, and unless she obtained a certain average in all, Ruth ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... take three months? Why should they take more than three days,—or three hours? It is all plain sailing." ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... sure, for us it was all plain sailing. The charts told where the shoals were and how to avoid them. Our chief danger lay in presuming too much upon our light draft and in venturing too far from the indicated channels. But how about those deeper-draft, chartless sailing ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... it is a run of from forty-two to forty-five hours. If this fog continues, it will take longer than that, for the navigation is not all plain sailing," ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... bold horse, with plenty of jumping power in his quarters and hocks, is essential. It may safely be said that a man who can command hounds in the Braydon and Swindon district will find the "shires" comparatively plain sailing. The wall country of the Cotswold tableland is exactly the reverse of the vale. The pace there is often tremendous, but the obstacles are not formidable enough to those accustomed to walls to keep the eager field from pressing the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... the police would find difficult to tear down. Yet he was not wholly reassured as to the outcome until Annie, the day following the interview in his office, informed him breathlessly that she had found the mysterious woman. The judge was duly elated; now it was plain sailing, indeed! There had always been the possibility that Howard's confession to the police was true, that he had really killed Underwood. But now they had found the one important witness, the mysterious woman who was in the ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... silently as he made for the sidewalk. The first man he plumped into was William—a very much worried William, too. Robert could have fallen on his neck for joy. All was plain sailing now. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... not the easy plain sailing business that it is commonly supposed to be: it is hard work—harder than any but a growing boy can understand; it requires attention, and you are not strong enough to attend to your bodily growth, and to your lessons too. Besides, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... scratches here and there on her iron-work that she had been set up and then taken apart again; and so was sure that all was smooth for her coming together in the right way. But, for all that I had such plain sailing before me in the actual work of refitting her, my courage went down a little as I perceived what a big contract I had taken, and what a very long time must pass before I could pull ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... "It's plain sailing now, boys," said Mr. Pinkerton; "this end has been worked dry, and you must return to Chicago with me. Cummings, or rather Wittrock, if Moriarity has spoken the truth, will certainly make for Chicago, and you ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... of our walking abreast; but sometimes I had to walk behind him, while he pioneered the way, and more frequently we could only think of the road and the means of getting along it. There was, indeed, as may be supposed, very little plain sailing; but then we had time enough to talk ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... I doubt of such a sale with so large a stock as we hold. I got a letter yesterday from that Cork attorney, and I find that he is quite prepared to give way about the branch. He wants his price, of course; and he must have it. When once we have carried that point, then it will be plain sailing; our only regret then will be that we didn't go further into it. The calls, of course, must be met; I shall be able to do something in October, but shall not have a shilling sooner—unless I sell, which I will ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... information for a moment. His cousin, then, had his enemies? By the brief glimpse which Plunger had given him of the life at Garside, he could see that it was not all plain sailing. There were deeper currents than any he had seen at Gaffer Quelch's school. The waves beat with stronger force, and there were shoals ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... this is plain sailing. Of course they must have a constabulary. Lord Edward," continued the Premier, turning now to the Secretary of War, "how long will it take to send in a couple of hundred constabulary? I think they'll expect it, you know. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... first floor. A high garden-seat stood directly beneath the window and acted as a convenient ladder. It was easy to get from this on to the window-ledge. Once there he could open the window, and the rest would be plain sailing. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... It was not plain sailing, by any means, owing to the collection of tin cans and bottles through which I had to pick my way, but I climbed some frail wooden steps, and stood at length on the landing of ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... way would be to make inquiries at Bradford, and from there you might be able to track him," suggested Mr. Hillman. "Just remember that with this man everything will be plain sailing, and that without him Massie may get the best of us, and I am confident you will bring ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... he is certain that if he could once see her and be thrown with her for a few days, she would find that he is not such an old ogre, after all, would take him back as a father, as we might say, and that after that everything would be plain sailing. That's his theory. The point is how to see her and be thrown with her for the ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... 1915. Imbros. Nothing doing but sheer hard work. The sailors the same. Sent one pretty stiff cable as we all agreed that we must make ourselves quite clear upon the question of guns and shell. After all, any outsider would think it a plain sailing matter enough—a demand, that is to say, from Simpson-Baikie at Helles that he should be gunned and shell supplied on the same scale as the formations he quitted on the Western Front only a few weeks ago. Simpson-Baikie has been specially sent to us by Lord K., ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... rapidly than I can tell them, like the quick succession of pictures in the cinematograph, I made up my mind to become Goward's friend in so far as circumstances would permit. With Aunt Elizabeth out of the way it seemed to me that we would find all plain sailing again, but how to get rid other was the awful question. Poor Peggy could hardly be happy with such a Richmond in the field, and nothing short of Elizabeth's engagement to some other man would help matters any. She had been too long unmarried, anyhow. Maiden aunthood is an unhappy estate, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Chronicle it becomes Wigera ceaster, and Wigra ceaster; but by the twelfth century it has grown into Wigor ceaster, from which the change to Wire ceaster and Worcester (fully pronounced) is not violent. This is all plain sailing enough. But what is the meaning of Wigorna ceaster or Wigran ceaster? And what Roman or English name does it represent? The old English settlers of the neighbourhood formed a little independent principality of Hwiccas (afterwards subdued ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... After this 'twas plain sailing, though I had never been into that port before. Made it about noon, took possession of a convenient mooring-buoy inside the breakwater—which buoy I found out later was sacred to the French flag-ship or somebody ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... plain sailing, and the money you lowered to me was much more than sufficient for all the other things. And now, what is your honour ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... of a liberal education. His demonstration was printed on a large chart. He began with the seventy weeks of Daniel, he added in the "time and times and a half," and what Daniel declared that he "understood not when he heard," was plain sailing to the enlightened and mathematical mind of Elder Hankins. When he came to the thousand two hundred and ninety days, he waxed more exultant than Kepler in his supreme moment, and on the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days he did what Jonas Harrison called "the blamedest tallest ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... and, by sympathetic tact, to avoid rousing it, and not to be always thrusting school interests down home throats. The duty of a life of rule at home is all the more complex because home pleasures are duties too; if it was only a question of self-denial it would be plain sailing, but your mother likes you to go out, and your brothers want you, and if you refuse to enjoy yourself it hurts them: if you even betray that you would rather be doing something else, you spoil their pleasure, ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... way into the distance since the sanguine predictions of Macaulay. Perhaps Froude never quite worked out his conceptions of the federal system which he would have liked to see. In Australia it would have been plain sailing. In Canada it was already established. In South Africa it would have embodied the union of British with Dutch, and prevented the disasters which have since occurred. In the West Indies it would have raised problems of race and colour ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... to say, James: it can hardly be plain sailing. If women were not more forgiving than we, bless their little hearts, you would have no chance to do anything. And the finer grain they are of, the more embarrassing it becomes; with her sort it is peculiarly difficult. I know, from long and trying experience; I have to mind my p's and q's, I tell ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... said complacently, and smiled to myself. The only thing to be discovered now was if the young athlete's emotions were at the same ebb, and then what was there against plain sailing to the happy port ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... please him beyond compare were she to achieve a pronounced literary success. He had urged her to write a novel. She had lightly laughed him to scorn—and had kept turning in her mind the possible plot for a tale. One day it suddenly took shape; the whole thing seemed to her perfectly plain sailing; if Clitheroe had launched her upon that venturesome sea, she had suddenly found herself equipped and able to sail without the aid ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... books against the religion of Christ of which she shrank from hearing, and share the anxieties of the young rector as to his future relations towards a personality so marked, and so important to every soul in the little community he was called to rule. Here all was plain sailing; she understood him perfectly, and her gentle comments, or her occasional sarcasms, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... there was a second turn, this time toward the left! but it was more of a gentle curve, and we took it without trouble. After that it was plain sailing, though as far as I could know, there might be most anything ahead of us, and my nerves strained to the snapping-point every instant. After the second turn the channel ran comparatively straight for between one hundred and fifty and two hundred yards. ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... boat-builder's motive, which was anything but vanity. He had some of this weakness himself, and felt that he had sailed the Sea Foam as well as any one could have done it, and was satisfied that the Skylark was really a faster yacht than his own. The race was plain sailing, with a free wind nearly all the way, and there was not much room for the exercise of superior skill in handling the craft. At least, this was Ned's opinion. If the course had been a dead beat to windward for ten miles, the ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... plain sailing," replied Captain York, bringing his fist down on the table with emphasis; "not running after war-ships that could blow us out of the water without thinking of it. Fair orders I took, and fair orders ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Commons with a suit, and you'd have to go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and you'd have to go to the House of Lords with a suit, and you'd have to get an Act of Parliament to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if it was a case of very plain sailing), I suppose from a thousand to fifteen hundred pound,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Perhaps twice ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... looked at me, and, just as I was leaving, she whispered, "Do make it three or four days, Britten," and I promised her with a glance she could not mistake. And why not? What was against us? Was it not all plain sailing? Truly so, but for one little fact. I'll tell you in a word—Hook-Nosed Moss and the old bill he carried about like a love-letter—a bill against Dolly St. John for seventy-five pounds sixteen ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... he did. "Now, Tamino, you have been a brave man till now; but there are two perilous trials awaiting you, and if you go through them well—" They didn't exactly promise that all should be plain sailing after that, but they led the youth to infer as much, which encouraged him. "Lead in Pamina," the order then was given, and ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... don't you think you had best make it plain sailing for everybody, and let me draw up ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... all plain sailing as subsequent events prove; yet in "Betty Gordon at Boarding School," the fourth volume of the series, Betty had many; pleasant adventures as well as school trials. She was particularly interested in the fortunes of Norma and Alice Guerin, ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... of home service is wrapped in pleasant memory. It was not always plain sailing, but difficulties were lightened by the wonderful spirit that animated all ranks and the pride which all felt in the Battalion. I recall especially the work of some who have not returned; Davenport, Scott, Stockton, Zeder, and Tiddy among the officers, and among the non-commissioned ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... double harness was a vastly different matter from going it single. Not that it was plain sailing by any manner of means. Neither of us knew anything about it; but we were there to find out, and exploring together was fine fun. We started fair by laying in a stock of everything there was in the cook-book and ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... he. "She'll turn up safe and sound and enthusiastic before she's a week older. We'll have plain sailing from now ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... at a small dance my partner told me he had just joined the Surrey Yeomanry; that brought the subject up once more and I confided all my troubles to him. Joy of joys! He had actually seen some of the Corps riding in Hounslow Barracks. It was plain sailing from that moment, and I hastened to write to the Adjutant of the said Barracks to ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... thing that seemed possible: started to propose a vote of thanks. Pretty fair rubbish I must have started with, too: but by and by I slipped into my own election speech and after that it was pretty plain sailing. You see, when a man runs for candidate, he begins by preparing half a dozen speeches; but by the time he's half through he has them pretty well boiled down into one, and he can speak that one in his sleep. After ten minutes or so ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... though everything were going to be plain sailing this year," said Jessica. "There isn't a disturbing element in the class that I know of. Still, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... over the first three weeks of the voyage rapidly, but it must not be supposed that therefore it was all plain sailing. On the contrary, the travellers were delayed by thunderstorms, and heavy rains, and gales, and impeded by ice, which, even in the middle of June lay thick on the waters in some parts. They were also tormented by hosts of mosquitoes, and at times they ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... was no consideration wherefore the defendant should be charged unless the master had first promised to indemnify the plaintiff before the servant was bailed; "for the master did never make request to the plaintiff for his servant to do so much, but he did it of his own head." This is perfectly plain sailing, and means no more than the case in the Year Books. The report, however, also states a case in which it was held that a subsequent promise, in consideration that the plaintiff at the special instance of the defendant had married the defendant's ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... exercise a good deal of discretion and caution in regard to Louise," she declared. "The affair is not at all so plain sailing as ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... no heed. Having reached the island, the rest was truth and plain sailing. He described their life there until they were taken off by a trading schooner from Auckland, and how for three months they cruised with her among the islands. He spoke learnedly of atolls, copra, and missionaries, and, referring for a space to the Fijian belles, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... I bring you Christ's message: He will have no man to enlist in His army under false pretences. He will not deceive any of us by telling us that it is all easy work and plain sailing. Salting by fire can never be other than to the worse self an agony, just because it is to the better self a rapture. And so let us make up our minds that no man is taken to heaven in his sleep, and that the road is a rough one, judging from the point of view of flesh and sense; but though rough, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... to pretend, it was then that what they were keeping back was most in the air. There was a difference, no doubt, and mainly to Kate's advantage: Milly didn't quite see what her friend could keep back, was possessed of, in fine, that would be so subject to retention; whereas it was comparatively plain sailing for Kate that poor Milly had a treasure to hide. This was not the treasure of a shy, an abject affection—concealment, on that head, belonging to quite another phase of such states; it was much rather a principle ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... the controller of all my wealth, entrusted to carry out all my wishes, till it is time either for you to come where I am, or for me to return hither. We never know how or when that may be. But it has all seemed plain sailing for me since I saw the city called 'Brazen' but which WE know is Golden!—and when I found that you belonged to it, and were only stationed here for a short time, I knew I could give you my entire confidence. It is not as if we were of the passing world or its ways—we are ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... of men were too often hampered. Law, if you had asked him, and he had accurately expressed himself, was a mist formed out of the moods and the mistakes of men, which befogged the sea of life and prevented plain sailing for the little commercial and social barques of men; it was a miasma of misinterpretation where the ills of life festered, and also a place where the accidentally wounded were ground between the upper and the nether millstones of force or chance; it was a strange, weird, interesting, and yet futile ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... the captain, smiling; "only I don't call that an emergency, only a matter of plain sailing. It makes one ready to go straight on, for I don't know anything more wherriting to a sailor than having a nice breeze blowing overhead and not coming down low enough to fill his sails. I've been like that before now in one of these rivers, but I don't think ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... help doing) what I am here for, nothing will persuade him that I haven't been playing a double game; and that would not be a promising preliminary towards becoming a member of his family. If Miriam were only Grace, now, it would be plain sailing. Hello! who's this? Senor Don Miguel, as I'm a sinner! What is he up to, pray? Can this be the explanation of Miriam's escapade? I have a strong desire to blow a hole through that fellow!—Buenas noches, Senor de Mendoza! I am enchanted to have the unexpected ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... the heavy car could move on to terra firma and proceed with its journey. These little accidents, however, all added a spice of adventure and fun to the tour; the young folks, at any rate, did not wish everything to be too plain sailing; they thoroughly enjoyed the romantic side of the trip, and liked to get off the beaten track into the wilds of the country. They had brought all sorts of wonderful contrivances for cooking the mid-day lunch, which they always ate out-of-doors. There was ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... axles by a squad of men, and slid along admirably for a considerable distance. Seventy Chinese wheelbarrows, however, obtained from a Japanese depot, rendered invaluable aid on this day. Tsimo, the halting-place, was reached in the evening, and next day, after the first ten miles, saw plain sailing. A few days later, on October 30, after the Sikhs had rested and recovered, the whole British force, now some 1,500 strong, moved up to the front in readiness for the bombardment of Tsing-tao, which had been arranged to begin next morning ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... took hold of my hand, and leading me slowly forward a few paces, I found there were three diverging passages. He drew me into the middle one. Then we resumed our quick gait, and, for some little time, all appeared to be plain sailing again. ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... not plain sailing, even for the veteran navigation of Mrs. Trevise; Juno had returned from the bedside very plainly displeased (she was always candid even when silent) by something which had happened there; and before the joyful moment came when we ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... only gave nice berths to men of letters then, but let them have deputies) embezzled public and private moneys, with disastrous results to his easy-going principal. But for the time it was all, as most things were with Moore, plain sailing. He went out in a frigate, and was the delight of the gun-room. As soon as he got tired of the Bermudas, he appointed his deputy and went to travel in America, composing large numbers of easy poems. In October 1804 he was back in England, still ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... plain sailing!" cried the delighted tar, slapping the breach of the gun, affectionately. "Witch or no witch, there go two of her jackets at once; and, by the captain's good-will, we shall shortly take off some more of her clothes! ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... drowsy soliloquy. "I say she's as straight as a poplar, and his honor the admiral says so too! Come along, my dear," he proceeded, addressing himself to Magdalen again. "I'll teach you your Pints of the Compass first. When you know your Pints, blow high, blow low, you'll find it plain sailing all ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... "Plain sailing, my boy. It's the social reformers and novelists who create these artificial conundrums; they want to sell their rotten literature; they want to make us forget that the only interesting and important part of the business ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the bend below Cape Girardeau. They used to call it 'Steersman's Bend;' plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always; about the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowed to take a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thirty thousand dollars net in two years if I had more cash to work on. As it is, I have to go slow, or I'd go broke. I'm holding two limits by the skin of my teeth. But I've got one good one practically for an annual pittance. If I make delivery on my contract according to schedule it's plain sailing. That about ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... than St. Petersburg. Next you discover that there is no 'house of Mr. Black.' Mr. Black died, respected and beloved, God be with him! a hundred years ago or less, and the house has changed owners three times since. So far, it is tolerably plain sailing. Then it appears that the house you are in search of is not in the street at all, but tucked in behind it, on a parallel lane, round several corners and elbows." (I will explain, in parenthesis, that the old system of designating a house by the name of the owner, which prevailed ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... "Plain sailing, my lad," panted Mr. Jope, as the cornfield threw up its heat in our faces. "See, yonder's Saltash!" He pointed up the river to a small town which seemed to run toppling down a steep hill and spread itself like a landslip at the base. "I got a sister living there, ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... all plain sailing for J.W. Nobody bothered Marty; he was going into the ministry, and that settled that. Among the students who went in for religious work were several who could not quite share Marty's complacence over J.W.'s program. They thought ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... if I had won many bets, and was only twenty, and that the course before me was all plain sailing. I was not yet in a condition to argue with myself about right and wrong. It did not seem worth while to look into the serried faces of difficulties and think how I could burst through them. It was more ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... that if I relinquished my duties without any excuse people would say I was mad and shut me up in a lunatic asylum. I invented a breakdown in my health, and everything is plain sailing. I've got a pair for the rest of the session, and at the general election the excellent Robert Boulger will ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... sheep along Comanche Creek, downstream, on the right-hand side; he would bring them back not very wide of the same course. This arrangement he had made entirely with a view to being quickly found in case help arrived; he had left a note behind giving instructions. As this was all very plain sailing, Janet saw that she would be quite free to come and go, and she had been quick to turn this arrangement to the lambs' advantage. When she had satisfied the worst of her hunger she started out again. The consciousness that she could find him whenever she wished, and was, virtually, in touch ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... no longer a "Martha Struggles," but a comfortable young woman, with plain sailing before her, and the worst of the voyage well over, I once more presented myself to the valuable Mc K. The order was read, and certain printed papers, necessary to be filled out, were given a young gentleman—no, I prefer to say Boy, with a scornful emphasis upon the word, as ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... destination. Rear Admiral Gleaves, commanding the destroyer force which accompanied the transports, telegraphed the Navy Department to the same effect. But it subsequently transpired that all had not been plain sailing in passing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... An ugly revelation might result, remember. Therefore it must not be allowed. While Walter was abroad all was pretty plain sailing. Lots of the letters she wrote him I secured from the post-box, read them, and afterwards burned them. But now he's back there is a distinct peril. He's a cute young ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... then all would be plain sailing. It was now quite dark. I dared not use lights, not, even side lamps, and going was decidedly slow and risky in consequence. I sat in the bonnet of the car and, peering ahead, called out the direction. Shortly a lightish mass loomed up ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... all plain sailing. But here's the hitch. Why didn't I tell the Procurator-Fiscal? You ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or word, she will lead us to the prince," declared Mr. Grimm, "and the moment he is known to us everything becomes plain sailing. We know she is a secret agent—I expected a denial, but she was quite frank about it. And I had no intention whatever of placing her under arrest. I knew some one was in the adjoining room because of a slight noise in there, ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... degree may make great mistakes in decoration. What not to do, in this day of almost universal experiment, is perhaps the most valuable lesson to the untrained decorator. Many of the rocks upon which he splits are down in no chart, and lie in the track of what seems to him perfectly plain sailing. ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... are around the Horn! The profound significance of this can be appreciated only by one who has wind-jammed around from east to west. Blow high, blow low, nothing can happen to thwart us. No ship north of 50 was ever blown back. From now on it is plain sailing, and Seattle ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... peoples. It will bring into the best European minds the American ideal of service. It will, in fact, give us the lead and make the English in the long run our willing followers and allies. I don't mean that we shall always have plain sailing. But I do mean that the direction of events for the next fifty or one hundred ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... woe to the unwary or to the newcomer who thinks our heather-covered moors are all plain sailing! for along them run long lines of ruts, the remains of the old pack-road of the Middle Ages, worn by the traffic of centuries and now covered deep in purple heath. The only way to get over them, unless you stop and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the Princess Emma von der Tann," Butzow reminded him. "She still repulses him. He may think that, with you removed definitely and permanently, all will then be plain sailing for him in that direction. Evidently he ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to get his feet first on the bar and then on the table. He was not at all hungry but he tried, saw it would not be quite easy and gave it up; then he thought better of it and tried again, and saw again that it was not all perfectly plain sailing; and so backwards and forwards with the first-he-would-and- then-he-wouldn'tism of a mind so nearly in equilibrium that a hair's weight would turn the scale one ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... am not sure that I wouldn't! Her writing is as meek as Anastasia's is aggressive, and she never descends to the transparency of an underlined "if." She says, would I mind sending her a book, called so-and-so, by such and such an author, price so much? It is all plain sailing with Cousin Penelope. She knows just what she wants and where to get it; so much so that I sometimes wonder why she doesn't send straight to the shop. But country cousins never do that; for wherein would lie the use of London ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... neither Jennings, Marie, nor the duenna Aunt Josephine were visible. They were not and he quickly took the ring from his pocket. Without waiting, he showed it to Elaine. In fact, so sure had he been that everything was plain sailing, that he seemed to take it almost for granted. Under other circumstances, he would have ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... of incessant struggling, and the loss of more than a mile of distance, he succeeded, for the first time, in reaching the back of the surf, without having parted company either with his paddle or with his catamaran. After this it became all plain sailing; he soon paddled off to the Roads, and placed the Admiral's letter in the first lieutenant's hands as dry as if it had been borne in a despatch-box across ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... reading this document; and then he added, "By Jove! it's lucky, too. I'll put these two infernal women off on her, and Alice will soon do for the girl, if she once gets at the drink. She's dangerous, by Jove, when she has been drinking. Then the Law will do for Alice, and all will be plain sailing in ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... pride, when 'tis his own sister, and hang upon her and bother her when he knows 'tis for her good that he should not. Yes, her life has been quare enough. I hope she enjoys it, but for my part I like plain sailing. None of your ups and downs for me. There, I suppose 'twas her nater to want to look into ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... plain sailing, however, as regards the progress of the "New Learning." Despite his efforts, Lorenzo could not prevent its development being checked during the papal-Neapolitan quarrel with Florence. That war originated in a dispute with Pope Sixtus IV, who kept ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... comparatively plain sailing, but Hume now propounds a difficulty which he at first presents as seemingly insurmountable, but which I cannot help thinking to be mainly of his own creation, and which he himself, almost immediately afterwards, suggests a mode, though ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... everything was absolutely plain sailing. And as Field had anticipated there was nobody in the kitchen and nobody in the corridor leading to the better part of the house. All the same, a big fire, recently made up, was roaring in the range, showing that the place was not quite deserted. ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... seemed no very arduous ordeal for the first half-dozen journeys. There was a knack about keeping the stretcher horizontal: the front bearers must hold their handles as low as possible; the rear bearers must hoist their handles shoulder-high. It was all plain sailing and perfectly easy. Four men to a stretcher is luxurious. At least it is luxurious on the level, and if you have not far to go and not many consecutive stretchers to carry. But when the convoy was a large one, when the bearers were too few and you had no sooner got rid of one stretcher ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... for he wanted to persuade himself that he could accept the fact of war, and participate in it, without renouncing his pacifism of yesterday, his humanitarianism of the day before, and his constant optimism. It was not plain sailing, but there is nothing that the brain cannot attain to. When its master thinks it absolutely necessary to get rid for a time of principles which are in his way, it finds in these same principles the exception which violates them while ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... follow. As for being left behind she would not care the least for that if he were left behind with her. They got well away, having to pause a moment while the hounds came up to Tony's horn out of the wood. Then there was plain sailing and there were very few before them. "He's one of the old sort, my lord," said Tony as he pressed on, speaking of the fox. "Not too near me, and you'll go like a bird," said his lordship. "He's a nice little horse, isn't he? When I'm going to be married, ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... were now well advanced and all seemed plain sailing ahead; he conferred with Diego Columbus, Admiral of the Indies, concerning the foundation of the forts he had undertaken to build along the coast at intervals of one hundred leagues from one another. These forts were to serve for defence and also as centres of trade to which the Indians ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... are never plain sailing, my dear. When a bishop has to oppose any of his clergy, it is always made as difficult ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... However this may be, had he seen the Chart, framed by the author of the English Commentary, or that now delineated, perhaps he might have allowed, that Horace not only made towards his point with some side-wind or other, but proceeded by an easy navigation and tolerably plain sailing. ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... is "plain sailing," to the Portages, where the tracks are of all imaginable kinds and degrees of badness, and the canoes and their cargoes are never carried across in less than two or three trips; the little vessels alone monopolizing, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... that the Poet was educated at Westminster and Christ Church—facts that in themselves suggest a column of copy about Football at Vincent Square, the mysteries of Seniors, Juniors, and Second Election, and the glories and humours of Tom's Quad. Not much trouble about that. So far, plain sailing. Bolingbroke Square, too, helps one along. Historical reminiscences, Pimlico in time of Romans, ditto Normans, ditto when ELIZABETH was Queen. All this can be worked up comfortably and conveniently ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various |
