"Pretty much" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me you had found time in the press of all yours to say you would," Nick replied. And this was pretty much all that had passed on the subject between them—save of course her immediately making clear that Peter had grossly misinformed him. What had happened was that she had said she would do nothing of the sort. She professed ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it dangerous to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the giving him this unheard-of chance among us is, in plain words, pretty much like giving him hush-money to keep him quiet. However that may be, Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands, and if he succeeds with it, he pokes his ugly nose into our office as sure as fate. I put you up to this, sergeant, so that you may not stand in your ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... "Oh yes, yes; pretty much. What handsome glasses those are! I didn't know you had such glasses in the house. Now, Lucy" (to his wife), "you ought to get some like them for ourselves." And when they had abandoned cards, and Winterborne was talking to Melbury ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... their assistant. Faust is supposed to have employed himself in cutting the type, which is an extremely slow process, till Peter Schoeffer, afterward his son-in-law, suggested an improved mode of casting it in copper matrices struck by steel punches, pretty much in the same manner as was till recently practised throughout Europe. The firm had for some time previously adopted a method of casting type in moulds of plaster, which was a tedious process, as every letter ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... to see Mr. G. on the Bench to the right of SPEAKER, Prince ARTHUR facing him on Opposition Bench. They seem to assume altered position quite naturally. Mr. G. looks pretty much as he has done any time these two years back. Eager, straight-backed, bright-eyed, smiling gaily in response to cheer that greets him from at present ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... near Regent's Park last night, and when I came away the fancy took me to walk home instead of taking a hansom. It was a clear pleasant night enough, and after a few minutes I had the streets pretty much to myself. It's a curious thing, Austin, to be alone in London at night, the gas-lamps stretching away in perspective, and the dead silence, and then perhaps the rush and clatter of a hansom on the stones, and the fire starting ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... without stepping on somebody's toes—and when I was twenty I set out to beat my way to Chicago, and went clean out to Arizona. That's a long story—I'll tell you that some day, for I've been everything on earth you can be in order to keep alive, and done pretty much everything you can do with two hands that will earn you a square meal. I've cut corn and ploughed fields, and greased wheels, and chopped wood, and mended machinery, and cleaned the snow away, and once out in some little town ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... husbands are pretty much the same everywhere; an individual husband of any country is a pretty fair ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... according to the statistics given by the Agricultural Department at Washington, for the year 1866, the average yield in some of these States was but four and a half bushels per acre. It is evident from this that Mr. Skinflint has had things pretty much his own way. His land now produces four and a half bushels per acre; what time shall elapse when it shall be four and one half acres per bushel? Who dare predict that manure will not at some day be of value west of the Alleghanies? New-Jersey, with a soil naturally inferior to that of Illinois, ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... looked always pretty much the same. We got beautiful holly every Christmas," replied Norma, who did not like Virginia exalted at the expense of ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... may give that name to an unorganised collection of volunteers—is entirely democratic. The men are nominally under field cornets, commanders, and the General. But they openly boast that on the field the authority and direction of officers do not count for much, and they go pretty much as they please. The camp, though not in the least disorderly, was confused and irregular—stores, firewood, horses, cattle, and tents strewn about the enormous veldt, almost haphazard, though the districts were kept fairly well separate. Provisions ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... They've attracted poor Mary, for one. They attract me, Michael. But the cold fact remains: imprudent marriages do lead to long unhappiness and disappointment— you've got used to your drinks and things—I shan't be pretty much longer—" ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... left pretty much to his own devices, took a walk in and about the village, ascending a hill at one side, which afforded him a fine view of ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... "Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature; because its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The death's-head ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... at Ballitore two years; then, at the age of fourteen, he became a student at Trinity College, Dublin, and remained there five years. At college he was unsystematic and careless of routine. He seems to have done pretty much as he pleased, and, however methodical he became in after life, his study during these five years was rambling and spasmodic. The only definite knowledge we have of this period is given by Burke himself in letters to his former friend ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... The populace of Dublin, and some parts in the North, are in some sort an exception. But the Primate, Lord Hillsborough, and Lord Hertford have great sway in the latter; and the former may be considerable or not, pretty much as the Duke of Leinster pleases. On the whole, the success of government usually depended on the bargain made with a very few men. The resident lieutenancy may have made some change, and given a strength to government, which formerly, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... afterwards was blind of both. Could Mr. Savers have held out for three minutes, for five minutes, for ten minutes more? He says he could. So we say WE could have held out, and did, and had beaten off the enemy at Waterloo, even if the Prussians hadn't come up. The opinions differ pretty much according to the nature of the opinants. I say the Duke and Tom could have held out, that they meant to hold out, that they did hold out, and that there has been fistifying enough. That crowd which came in and stopped the fight ought to be considered like one of those divine clouds which the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... could be hardly said to know what school was. He had been sent indeed to Mr. Lawley's grammar-school for the last half-year, and had learned a few declensions in his Latin grammar. But as Mr. Lawley allowed his upper class to hear the little boys their lessons, Eric had managed to get on pretty much as he liked. Only once in the entire half-year had he said a lesson to the dreadful master himself, and of course it was a ruinous failure, involving some tremendous pulls of Eric's hair, and making him tremble like a ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... the sympathy of the tone Robert was conscious of a veil between them. He knew, of course, pretty much what it was, and with a sudden impulse he felt that he would have given worlds to break through it and talk frankly with this man whom he revered beyond all others, wide as was the intellectual difference ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... by any means. I have been over this ground before you, and know pretty much what kind ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... gentlemen," returned the unmoved Aristabulus, who perceived a general smile. "I know that some people are particular about keeping pretty much on the same level, as to office: but I hold to no such doctrine. If one good thing cannot be had, I do not see that it is a reason for rejecting another. I ran that year for sheriff, and finding I was not strong enough to carry the county, I accepted my successor's ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... means for ordinary administrative purposes, and secondly to reorganize trade and agriculture, brought him almost immediately into conflict with the peasants, who, during the long struggle for national independence, had become accustomed to do pretty much as they pleased. The utterances of the Man from Smaland are typical of the sentiments that prevailed among the peasants throughout the country, not least when he speaks of the King's intention to "take away their priests and friars," for the majority of ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... wretchedness of their locks and keys! Mechanical studies or improvements should seem to be almost entirely uncultivated—for those who remember France nearly half a century ago, tell me that it was pretty much then as it is now. Another thing discomposes the sensitive nerves of the English; especially those of our notable housewives. I allude to the rubbishing appearance of their grates—and the dingy and sometimes ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Catholic. He was at home the partly republican magistrate of what had once been a purely republican experiment, and among the cleaner if colder ideals of the seventeenth century. George was when he was at home pretty much what the King of the Cannibal Islands was when he was at home—a savage personal ruler scarcely logical enough to be called a despot. William was a man of acute if narrow intelligence; George was a man of no intelligence. Above all, touching the immediate ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... I ran away from him at twelve, and never passed a week at a time under his roof afterwards. He could not do much for me, for he had little education and no money, and, I believe, carried on the business pretty much by faith. He was a good man, Leach, notwithstanding there might be a little of a take-in for such a person to set up as a teacher; and, as for my mother, if there ever was a pure spirit on earth ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... cheap chocolate—moved with aimless longing through the nocturnal, glittering, noisy streets of the city in which Maria Mondlich studied medicine. He met her while she was returning sadly from a lecture on human sexual diseases and male disorders. For fun—pretty much—he spoke to her. Together they both ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... itself in sundry distressing gyrations, pretty much as a boy's kite swoops from side to side, when lacking in tail-ballast, while the professor seemed unable to keep the machine under ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... sentiment there; act towards each other pretty much as they always have," said Arthur to himself, taking a cigar from his pocket and lighting it with a match. "I wonder now what's the attraction to her for an old codger like that," he added watching the smoke as it curled lazily up from the end of ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... the Germans appeared to be out of this thing. But, after all, Dr. Franchi had been only the agent; he might be backed by any one in the world, and doubtless was. Also, he must have had many ruffians in his employ to do the executive work. So no doubt really and in the main things were pretty much as each member of the committee had suspected. The members who looked most gratified were the Latin Americans, from whom suspicion was now honourably lifted (though they regretted that Charles Wilbraham was no longer a suspect), and the Serb-Croat-Slovene delegate, ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... that taxi driver goes. If he'd wanted us to know about Caroline he'd of told us. He doesn't want us to know and he'd maybe take it pretty much to heart if he knew we'd ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... would drink for the honour of England, justement you should match yourselves here in this town against the famous Mont-Bazillac.' 'What is this Mont-Bazillac?' we asked: and they told us—well, pretty much what you told me just now—adding, however, that the landlord kept a few precious bottles of it. They were quite fair in ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... so penitent! It is really almost a relief to meet a woman who doesn't understand. All my friends are in pretty much the same case as myself, and they haven't got"—she stretched out her hand and timidly patted my arm—"my kind neighbour to help. Miss Harding, I think you must ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... prevented his job being perfect. Mabel Francis told me that one night when Izzy declared her the winner of the great sporting contest, it was such raw work that she thought there'd have been a riot. It looked pretty much as if he was afraid the same thing was going to happen now. There wasn't a doubt which of us two couples was the one that the customers wanted to see win that Love-r-ly Silver Cup. It was a walk-over for Mrs Charlie, and Charlie and I ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... tribulation. What though her young heart should be broken by the lesson,—be broken after the fashion in which human hearts are made to suffer? To Madame Staubach's mind a broken heart and a contrite spirit were pretty much the same thing. It was good that hearts should be broken, that all the inner humanities of the living being should be, as it were, crushed on a wheel and ground into fragments, so that nothing should ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... Institution that it is objectionable because a parliamentary reporter, for instance, might report a subscribing M.P. in large, and a non-subscribing M.P. in little? Apart from the sweeping nature of this charge, which, it is to be observed, lays the unfortunate member and the unfortunate reporter under pretty much the same suspicion—apart from this consideration, I reply that it is notorious in all newspaper offices that every such man is reported according to the position he can gain in the public eye, and according to the force and weight ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... at Florence went on pretty much as usual when all at once cholera broke out of the most virulent kind. Multitudes fled from Florence; often in vain, for it prevailed all through Tuscany to a great extent. The terrified people were kneeling to the Madonna and making processions, after which it was remarked that the number of ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... himself and if he failed again he was prepared to accept the responsibility. One bit of philosophy he carried with him from Mr. Denman's farewell interview—"Now, young man, rememer," that gentleman had said after he had bidden him farewell, "this world is pretty much made already; success consists in adjustment. Don't try to make your world, adjust yourself to it. Don't fight the world, serve it till you master it." Cameron determined he would study adjustments; his fighting tendency, ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... severe frost and deep snow this month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below the freezing point, within doors. The tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very providential that the air was still, and the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that some days were more severe than ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... you can run very fast, and like to keep on the chase pretty much all day, I think you would find it easier to take care of your pets at home than to ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... pictures, and the process by which those purposes were brought to completion. He tells us, that in his enthusiasm he visited, as a pilgrim, the spot where the heroic and tragic scenes of his subject were enacted. He presumes that the houses there are now pretty much what they were then; and he has thought an exact representation of them necessary to historical truth, and he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... that Brit had ever been married, and late comers never heard of it. To all intents the owners of the Quirt outfit were old bachelors who kept pretty much to themselves, went to town only when they needed supplies, rode old, narrow-fork saddles and grinned scornfully at "swell-forks" and "buckin'-rolls," and listened to all the range gossip without adding ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Keating. "Pretty much the other place! What good am I doing? What's the sense of keeping me here? Cervera isn't going to come out, and the people at Washington won't let Sampson go in. Why, those ships have been there a month now, and they'll be there just where they are now when you and I ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... I had guessed that pretty much every man in the room believed that it was Worth Gilbert with whom I had been talking over the phone. Dykeman's trailers would be right behind me. Yet to the last, Whipple and his crowd were offering me the return trip end of my ticket with them; if I would come back and be good, even now, ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... Mrs. Kinzer, "I've been thinking about it. You ought not to be tied down all the while. Suppose you take next week pretty much to yourself. Samantha wont want the ponies every day. The other horses have all got to work, or I'd let you ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... And again, in process of listening to every form of speech, (5) they have selected this from one place and that from another—for themselves. So much so that while the rest of the Hellenes employ (6) each pretty much their own peculiar mode of speech, habit of life, and style of dress, the Athenians have adopted a composite type, (7) to which all sections of Hellas, and the ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... run all the barber shops, laundries, bars, and pretty much everything else on the Alaskan coast. A certain Sam Blum had a store and bank; Reynolds wanted it; and Blum, it is alleged, annexed $50,000 of the New England money as a forfeited first payment on his property. A steamship ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... hoped rather than believed that Miss Foster did not care particularly for him; for I did not like him myself, although I worked for him and was taking his money. Being day in and day out with him in the store, you see I saw him pretty much as he really was, and I hated to think of a fine girl—for with all her cool ways I knew Miss Foster was that—marrying him. Just how Withrow thought he stood with Miss Foster I did not know—he was a pretty close-mouthed man when he wanted to be. Miss Foster ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... to sail the tenth, and, naturally, during those early July days, her time was pretty much occupied with her preparations for departure; but nothing could keep her from frequent, though short, visits to the home ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... in the local affairs of the colony; but whenever the English authorities have their mind made up to pursue a certain policy, whether it be for the construction of railways in the interior or the building of docks or breakwaters in the harbor of Cape Town, they generally do pretty much as they please. ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the smaller tent, where most of the provisions were kept. For they had discovered, as soon as they entered, that everything was thrown about, helter-skelter. Indeed, it looked as though the unknown thief must have been gathering together pretty much all their supplies in the shape of foodstuff, with the evident intention of carrying the same off; when, alarmed by their coming, he had grabbed up a strip of breakfast bacon, the last loaf of bread, and possibly a can of baked beans, with which ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... had been camping in this cave," said Bristles, sturdily, "and from the fact that we picked up this same tin box, empty, it'd look pretty much as if he ought to know something about it. ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... agreeable. But you see we're not in the same regiment. You're New Zealand, Dave and I are Australians. Still, I dare say we shall all be pretty much bunched when it comes ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... you, Langdon, only I was just a trifle afraid that you were going to beat Porter's mare. He's a friend of mine, and needed a win badly. I'm not exactly his father confessor, but I'm his banker, which amounts to pretty much the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Then he stooped down and kissed her twice, and left her to arrange her parties as she pleased. After that she congratulated herself that she had not made the direct proposition, knowing that she might now do pretty much what ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... meddlesome again for the last time, and never a good neighbor to Sweden, Gallas could by no means do what he intended; on the contrary, he had to run from Tortenson what feet could do, was hunted, he and his Merode-Bruder (beautiful inventors of the "Marauding" Art), "till they pretty much all died (crepirten)," says Kohler. No great loss to society, the death of these Artists, but we can fancy what their life, and especially what the process of their dying, may have cost poor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... good deal of company," he said. "On account of my fiddlin', and singin', and recitin' I've always had things pretty much my own way. It's opposition that's ruination. That's what shatters a man's heart and takes all his sperrit. As long as the game's between just a man and a girl there's nothin' very serious. One or the other ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... to go drearily in and out from the play at Chatteris during this season, and pretty much according to his fancy. His proceedings tortured his mother not a little, and her anxiety would have led her often to interfere, had not the Major constantly checked, and at the same time encouraged her; for the wily man of the world fancied he saw that a favourable turn had occurred in Pen's ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... many of them used to be pretty much the same to me. They was all very well; but as to breaking my heart about them,—why, it's a ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... know pretty much everything 'bout steals," sneered Bagby, who was clearly the local wit. "It 's been his business ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... that which I ventured before to term the public conscience of the school, the pervading moral sense, of which every mind partakes and to which so many individual minds contribute, remains, I believe, pretty much the same as when I left it. I have seen, within this twelvemonth almost, the change which has been produced upon a boy of eight or nine years of age, upon being admitted into that school; how, from a pert young coxcomb, who thought that all knowledge was comprehended within his shallow ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... away," said Patty. "We've pretty much read all we want to of this mountain of light literature. Let's give it all to the stewardess; and what do you think, Elise, about giving Yankee Doodle to the captain? He is a blessed old bear, and I hate to look forward ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... The next day passed pretty much the same as the first and by Thursday morning Helen was all smiles again, knowing that by tea-time her dear father would be ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... Seridon gave him the monastic habit, and recommended him to the care of one of his monks, named Dorotheus. This experienced director, sensible of the difficulty of passing from one extreme to another, left his pupil at first pretty much to his own liberty in point of eating, but was particularly careful to instil into him the necessity of a perfect renunciation of his own will in every thing, both great and little. As he found his strength would permit, he daily diminished ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... sir, always treat science rather superciliously," said Planchette. "They all talk to us pretty much as the incroyable did when he brought some ladies to see Lalande just after an eclipse, and remarked, 'Be so good as to begin it over again!' What effect do you want to produce? The object of the science of mechanics is either the application or the neutralization ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... and well; but pretty much worn out with old Age, Diseases, and lastly, with the Calamities ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... to be talked of a good deal. Her mother was congratulated, and she was complimented, for every body spoke well of him. "A remarkably clever young man with excellent prospects," the old people said. The young girls talked of him probably pretty much as Angila and Augusta had done—but she did not hear that, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... said. 'How did you get here? Say, I was going to try and get you on the phone some old time and explain things. I've been pretty much on the jump since I ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... chase,' and there'll be two quilts made out o' the same kind o' pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut 'em out and put 'em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there's a heap more in the cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the caliker. The same sort o' things comes into all lives, jest as the Apostle says, 'There hath no trouble taken you but is common ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... Silence is unnoticed when people sit before a fire Some men you always prefer to have on your left hand Sort of busy idleness among men There are no impossibilities to youth and inexperience Things are apt to remain pretty much the same Think the world they live in is the central one To-day is like yesterday, Usual effect of an anecdote on conversation Women know how to win by losing World owes them a ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... pretty much how it was," she murmured tearfully. "But I took it all to mean nothing, because of his illness," she added firmly, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... borne the expense of protecting the Iroquois against the French, and by various treaties she had become lawful suzerain over the Six Nations and their lands and the lands of their Algonquin vassals. On such grounds New York claimed pretty much everything north of the Ohio and east of ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... whatever they may be to the external world, always remain relatively to each other pretty much as they knew one another when a single home held them all. The familiar Christian names seemed to revive the old ways, and it was amusing to see the somewhat grave and silent colonel treated by his elder brother as the dashing, heedless ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the walls for the purpose of supporting fire-arms, etcetera, but the weapons had been secreted in a place of safety, for, during the owner's frequent and long absences from home, the cottage was locked up and left pretty much to take care of itself, being deemed safe enough, owing to its remote ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... resumed with the most business-like manner: "you can work with us without being obliged to deal in any way with the Old Man or De Morbihan, or Popinot. Bannon will never cross the Atlantic again, and you can do pretty much as you like, within reason—subject to ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... clear beauty in Colonial days than in our own. More clear beauty, we say, because the present has its own vigorous beauty, more complex than what went before, but not yet clarified from the ugly elements that are making it. The forests and the skyscrapers are beautiful in America, but pretty much everything else below and between is soiled or broken ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... favor. You are just the man I've been looking for for some days. I've wanted a man with three A blood and three Z finances for 'most a week now, and from what I gather from Burke and Bradstreet, you fill the bill. You owe pretty much everybody from your tailor to the collector of pew rents at your ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... said Mrs. Towers, "that rash and precipitate love may operate pretty much alike in the rash and precipitate of both sexes: and which soever loves, generally exalts the person beloved above his or her merits: but I am desirous, for the sake of us maiden ladies, since it is a science in which you are so great an adept, to have your advice, how we should watch ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... warned the more cautious Hugh. "I feel pretty much the same as you do about it, but we mustn't think of trying any White Cap business around such a respectable town as Scranton. There's still lots of time to investigate; and if the worst comes we can appeal to the mayor to help. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... to say to you," I answered quickly, coming at once to the point, as Simon left the room and shut the door behind him. "You've made pretty much of a fool of yourself with that Gastrell woman, Jack," I went on, with difficulty restraining the indignation I felt. "You are largely responsible for terrible things that have happened during the past few days—including the ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... Midas had grown quite an old man, and used to trot Mary gold's children on his knee, he was fond of telling them this marvellous story, pretty much as I have now told it to you. And then would he stroke their glossy ringlets, and tell them that their hair, likewise, had a rich shade of gold, which they had ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... replied Belding. "Guess he was pretty much knocked out.... I'll close the door there so we won't ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... never really looks his best just after he's come out of a cell. When I was up at Oxford, I used to have a regular job bailing out a pal of mine who never failed to get pinched every Boat-Race night, and he always looked like something that had been dug up by the roots. Cyril was in pretty much the same sort of shape. He had a black eye and a torn collar, and altogether was nothing to write home about—especially if one was writing to Aunt Agatha. He was a thin, tall chappie with a lot of light hair and pale-blue goggly eyes which made him ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... expect so," said Mr Fish. "Brother Sterne looks always pretty much so. He ain't apt to show his feelin's, if he's got any. He'll have something to suffer with his son William, I guess, whether ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... she said; "I thought perhaps you did yet; I thought perhaps"—she put well-feigned shyness into her tone—"that you weren't the sort that would turn away from us just because of what father has done. All the other folks will, of course. I'm pretty much alone." ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... not consider clothing as entirely superfluous. But we no longer regard it from any artistic or ornamental point of view; that would be to derogate from our character as bushmen. We are not over-burdened with too large a choice of clothing. Such as we have is pretty much held in common, and all that is not in immediate use finds a place on the partition-rack, or the shelves upon it. We are supposed to possess another change of garments apiece, but no one knows exactly ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... come. Man, that was some farm! Miles of level blue-grass pasture, with white fences cuttin' it up into squares, barns 'n' paddocks 'n' sheds, all painted white, just scattered around by the dozen. There's a track to work hosses on, too, but it's pretty much growed up with weeds. The main house is back in some big trees. It's brick 'n' has two porches, one on top of the other, ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... when the watch on deck were busy about the rigging or the guns, or the hundred and one details of a sailor's work, the rest of the crew had the interval till dinner pretty much to themselves. Some slept, some reeled out yarns to their messmates, others mended ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... indeed, in the Golden Hind with Drake, or in the Jesus with Morgan. He did not fit in a gentler generation, and a mild life had no charm for him. Gossip buzzed with his name, even in a day when gentlemen were permitted to behave pretty much ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... extensively than we should now think, and even some nucleus of fact in it as appears, That Austria, France and the Catholic part of the Reich were combining to put down Protestantism. To which they could now answer, "See, Protestant Sweden is with us!"—and so weaken a little what was pretty much Friedrich's last hold on the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... done a good job when He built that," observed Captain Jethro, waving his hand toward the Atlantic. "Don't never get tired of lookin' at salt water, I don't, and yet I've been in it or on it or around it pretty much all my life. And now I'm up above it," he added, thoughtfully. "We're pretty high up where we are now, Mr. Bangs. I like to set up here and—er—well, kind of think about things, sometimes.... Humph!... Do you cal'late we're any nigher ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Their particular history, however, will be preceded by a review of the condition of the Indians in this part of America, at the time it became known to Europeans. I have myself little doubt but that they were then pretty much ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... everything that I know of anthropology leads me to think that the belief in demons and demoniacal possession is a mere survival of a once universal superstition, and that its persistence, at the present time, is pretty much in the inverse ratio of the general instruction, intelligence, and sound judgment of the population among whom it prevails. Everything that I know of law and justice convinces me that the wanton destruction ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... how it was. It is pretty much always like this in a field hospital. Just ambulances rolling in, and dirty, dying men, and guns off there in the distance! Very monotonous, and the same, day after day, till one gets so tired and bored. Big things may be going on over there, on the other side of the captive balloons ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... aim, so they say, is public utility, the most useful of all arts, the art of training men, is still neglected. Even after Locke's book was written the subject remained almost untouched, and I fear that my book will leave it pretty much as it found it. ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Vienna, pretty much determined his vocation: he resolved to dedicate his life to Christian Art. On the point of departure, in writing to a friend in Lubeck, he takes a retrospective view, and also points to the future. He recalls evening walks under the shade of trees ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... nowadays do pretty much as they please about eating or not eating," observed the Eastern matron, in her large, impersonal way. "They can match our theories with quite as good ones of their own." She smiled again at Elsie, and the overtures on ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... long time ago—there lived somewhere in Oconto County, Wisconsin, a little jelly-fish. It was a curious creature, about the shape of half an apple, and the size of a cat's thimble, and it floated around in the water and ate little things and opened and shut its umbrella, pretty much as jelly-fishes do in ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Siegmund, perceiving how matters stood with his friend, skilfully interposed and said, after remarking that all argument with one in love about the object of his affections was out of place, "Yet it's very strange that several of us have formed pretty much the same opinion about Olimpia. We think she is—you won't take it ill, brother?—that she is singularly statuesque and soulless. Her figure is regular, and so are her features, that can't be gainsaid; and if her eyes were not so utterly devoid of life, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... run things pretty much to suit yourself, Lily," he said. "Now I'm in charge. It won't be to-morrow or next week or next month. It will be now. You're here. You've given them a chance to talk downstairs. You've nowhere to go, and you're going to marry ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Nobody don't ketch 'em much nowadays. Time was when they was pretty much all fished out, but I heerd there was some fellers turned in a heap of seedlin' fish three or four year ago. Right away arter that, my boys went over, and put in three days a hand runnin', but they didn't get nothin' but pumpkin-seeds. Plenty ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... directly; if they were well, there was no peace in the house for their rioting. For his part," continued the doctor, "he thought he was glad he had had no children; as far as he could judge, they were pretty much all plague and no profit." But as he ended his speech he sighed; and Mr Farquhar was none the less convinced that common report was true, which represented the clever, prosperous surgeon of Eccleston as bitterly disappointed at his ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... between the Regents and the Frenchmen before the terms were finally settled, and they had to expend much money and many promises in getting a footing. But they eventually succeeded, and a few years saw their efforts richly rewarded. As they had a monopoly, they could do pretty much as they pleased, and made very stringent and profitable regulations relative to the "apres" and other methods of gaining a pull. On the retirement of M. Chabert with an immense fortune, the company was dissolved, and M. Benazet became ostensibly sole proprietor of the rooms at Baden-Baden. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... in his communication. When he chose, he could go as straight to the point as any one. He did not attempt to gloss over his story, but put his cousin in possession of the facts pretty much ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... talking over the stirring scenes of that spectacular fire. Indeed, there had been a strenuous fight to keep it from spreading, and the Graysons' quarters next door were badly scorched, and the Graysons woefully scared, before the little bachelor hall had burned itself out. Big Jim Ennis had lost pretty much everything he owned except what he had on. Lanier was not much better off. As to the origin of the fire, Bob merely said that he had turned the lights low in the sitting-room, and, obedient to "Shoe's" orders, had gone up to his roost, too wrathful and amazed over what had occurred even ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... offending party—on the other hand, nothing is so certain to attract attention as nobility. How many poor Poles have I seen dragged about and made lions of, merely because they were reputed noble, though the distinction in that country is pretty much the same as that which exists in one portion of this great republic, where one half the population is white, and the other black; the former making the noble, and the ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... men, good men, too, were inclined to have it out with John Prather; but that would have precipitated a general fight with Leddy's gang. The conservatives got the hot-heads to wait till you came. You see, the trouble with every suggestion is that pretty much everybody is against it except the fellow who made it. The more we have talked, the more we have drifted back to you. It's a case of all we've got in the world and standing together, and we are ready to get behind you and take ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... engaged the fearful gaze of the boy were the figures of two ladies; red drugget cloaks they had on, like the peasant girls of Munster and Connaught, and the rest of their dress was pretty much in keeping. But they had the grand air, the refined expression and beauty, and above all, the serene air of command that belong to people of a ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... by parading the worn-out stage properties of the forties. Marx is to the vast majority of British Socialists still an oracle and the fountain head of all wisdom. "Marx is the Darwin of modern sociology."[267] "All over the world his brain is put on pretty much the same level as Aristotle's."[268] "Modern Socialism is based, nationally and internationally, theoretically and to a large extent practically, on the writings of Karl Marx. These writings have been expounded, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... only a small part of it used by the diamond makers," he added. "They work in a small recess, near the summit of the mountain. The little cave, where I'm going to take you, opens off from it by a long passage. And, except that you'll be pretty much in the dark, you'll be quite comfortable. There are tables, chairs, and some bunks in the place. I can get you some lights, and ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... here seem to be pretty much in her hand,' said Lucy, as she rose. 'She manages most of their affairs for them. But poor, poor thing!—did you see that account in the Tribuna ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a note to the nuss at the hospital, what 'tended the ward Miss Ellie was in, and I got all her clothes, and packed 'em in a box and brought 'em home. She told me pretty much what the doctor had said, only she was shore your ma spoke jest before she died, and called twice—'Ignace! Ignace!' She said she was beautiful as a angel and her hair was a wonder to all who saw her, it was so long and so lovely. She tole me the doctor ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Many of you imagine they are all pretty much alike; all solemn and tedious and slow. ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... in the centre of a great sugar-producing district. Sugar-cane is cultivated much like Indian corn, which it also resembles in appearance. It is first planted in rows and weeded until it gets high enough to shade its roots, after which it is left pretty much to itself until it reaches maturity. This refers to the first laying out of a plantation, which will afterwards continue to throw up fresh stalks from the roots, with a little help from the hoe, for several years. When ripe the cane is of a light golden ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... probable, fanciful; fantastic, or whimsical, perhaps, now and then; which he promulgates at table somewhat in the tone of imperial edicts. Another thing I like about him is, that he takes a certain intelligent interest in pretty much everything that interests other people. I asked him the other day what he thought most about in his wide ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... on our weather-quarter. It's none o' them French chaps as is with the County of Fairvillian,"—for so all the common men of the fleet believed their gallant enemy to be rightly named,—"but is a square-rigged craft by herself, jammed up on a wind, pretty much ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... against so redoubtable a champion on such short notice. Still, if you are marrying real estate, rather than wealth, intellect, or beauty, I may mention that I've got an option on that very house, and that it will cost me pretty much every cent I've made since I left college to ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was unused to wine, and the moment the Parisians saw it, they urged him to drink no more, and asking his hotel, they took him carefully and kindly to it in a carriage, after an hour or two had passed away and he had pretty much recovered from his dissipation. Now there can be no doubt that the enthusiastic politeness of the artisans, arose from the fact that he was a republican, and from a great republican country, and such facts which I have repeatedly witnessed, or heard of, assure me that the old republican fire ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... I sleep for?" grumbled Prickly Porky. "Cold weather doesn't bother me. I like it. I have the Green Forest pretty much to myself then. I like to be alone. And as long as there are trees, there is plenty to eat. I sleep a great deal in the daytime because ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... no means a selfish man. He was pretty much mixed, like the rest of us. Only, if we do not make up our minds not to be mixed with the one thing, we shall by and by be but little mixed ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... was here shown to be pretty much on a par with his knowledge of scripture. The doubts regarding the death of Edward II. had evidently not come to his knowledge; and, so far as Cain was concerned, the sign was not one of reprobation, but of protection—it was a mark that "no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... on board the galleon we had well-nigh lost all count or notion of time. To us one day was pretty much like another. If we slept it was only to be awakened by the overseer's whip. Day or night it was all one with us; never did our tormentors cease to afflict us. We were reduced to the condition of animals, and ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... rather have played jack-straws, for she thought listening to reading was very dull business indeed; but she was a polite little girl, which is pretty much the same thing as saying she was not selfish, and seeing that George and Mary were so pleased, and expected her to be so also, she made no objection, and climbed up into the big chair, and found it ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... for families to be with our folks—the Breckenridges! This is most interesting. Most certainly interesting. I must tell my brother. Schuyler is so loyal to all our old Marylanders; he thinks there are no people like them anywhere, though for my part I find human nature's pretty much the same all ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... can't say that she is. She has remained in much the same condition she sank to before his death. He trampled over pretty much whatever there was in her, I fancy. Women don't recover from wounds of that sort—at least, not women of Ellen's grain. They go on ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... you know why," he returned; "you're pretty much of a tenderfoot, but I reckon Judge Graney has put you wise to the situation. There ain't nobody wants to buy ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... myself to the non-philosophic reader, I beg him to consider what is the sort of feeling with which he regards an ancient river-god, or the presiding nymph of a fountain. The impression which he receives is pretty much like that from the monumental figure of some allegoric being, such as Faith or Hope, Fame or Truth. He hardly believes that the most superstitious Grecian seriously believed in such a being as a ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... friend of the accomplished Hycy Burke, who, it was whispered, began to look upon Miss Clinton with a partial eye. Hycy had got acquainted with him at the Herringstown races, where he, Hycy, rode and won a considerable sweepstakes; and as both young gentlemen were pretty much of the same habits of life, a very warm intimacy had, for some time past, subsisted between them. Clinton, to whom M'Mahon was known, addressed him in a friendly manner, and, after some chat, he laid the ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... attempt is a half-hearted "Candygram!" When the door is opened, a shark bursts in and chomps the poor occupant. There is a moral here for those attracted to candygrammars. Note that, in many circles, pretty much the same ones who remember Monty Python sketches, all it takes is the word "Candygram!", suitably timed, to get people rolling on ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... the matter that brought me here." The father plunged into this delicate subject with his son fearlessly, but with a deep breath, like a man diving into cold water. "I see, I've got to be pretty much alive if you and I are to get out of it with a whole skin. What I'd like to know is, how they saddle this ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... of a number of river "towns." We had already been partially disillusioned as to the character of those "towns." They were pretty much in a class with Goodale, except that they lacked the switch and the box-car and the sign. Just now Rocky Point lay ahead of us. Rocky Point meant a new supply of food and oil. Stimulated by this thought, Charley cranked heroically under the blistering ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... modern town-hall, in the style of one of our own vestry buildings, 'erected out of the rates,' and which must have cost a huge sum. It was of a genteel Italian aspect, so it is plain that French local administrators are, in matters of taste, pretty much as such folk are with us. One could have lingered long here, looking at this charming and graceful work, which its surroundings became quite as much as it did ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... called for small-beer, the master tipped the wink, and the servant brought me a brimmer of October. Some time after dinner, I ordered my cousin's man, who came with me, to get ready the horses; but it was resolved I should not stir that night; and when I seemed pretty much bent upon going, they ordered the stable door to be locked; and the children hid my cloak and boots. The next question was, what I would have for supper. I said I never ate anything at night; but was at last, in my own ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... know oncet!" he exclaimed anxiously. "Anyhow, she's pretty much sick—she looks it so! I guess I better mebbe not take no risks. I'll send fur Doc over. Sammy can ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... from before his becoming his son-in-law, had somehow filled the scene and blocked the future—very richly and handsomely, when all was said, not at all inconveniently or in ways not to have been desired: inasmuch as though the Prince, his measure now practically taken, was still pretty much the same "big fact," the sky had lifted, the horizon receded, the very foreground itself expanded, quite to match him, quite to keep everything in comfortable scale. At first, certainly, their decent little old-time union, Maggie's ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... boy, used to doing pretty much as he pleased, was obdurate, and even while she was talking, put on his ragged jacket and left ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... chieftain. The Sheikh's tent is capacious enough to shelter a regiment almost, and it is divided into compartments similar to a previous description; the Sheikh is a big, burly fellow, of about forty-five, wearing a turban the size of a half-bushel measure, and dressed pretty much like a well-to-do Turk; as a matter of fact, the Koords admire the Osmanlis and despise the Persians. The bicycle is reclined against a carpet partition, and after the customary interchange of questions, a splendid fellow, who must be six feet six inches tall, and broad-shouldered in proportion, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... tell you," said Hattie. "Just before I left I had a talk with old Kiser. Or rather, he had a talk with me. You know I have pretty much my own way in my department. Pity if I couldn't have. I made it. Well, Kiser wanted to know why I didn't buy Featherlooms. I said we had no call for 'em, and he came back with figures to prove we're losing a good many hundreds a year by not carrying them. He said ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... There's not much fun for a fellow who's at school in London. It's pretty much the same story—grind, grind, from ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth |
