"Proverbial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the proverbial pin drop as Field's organ-like voice, which all quickly recognized, rolled out the now familiar lines of "Dibdin's Ghost," then heard for the first time by everyone in that historic Corner. No point was missed in that weird recitation. I shall never forget the graveyard ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... were grouped in a corner of the apartment, where they were carrying on a very animated dialogue, the two oldest of the party (a male and a female) being the principal speakers. It was not to be expected that even a graduate of Oxford, although belonging to a sect so proverbial for classical lore that many of them knew nothing else, could at the first hearing decide upon the analogies and character of a tongue that is so little cultivated even in that ancient sea of learning. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... too, upon the absurdities of the world. Fashion could not supply the place of reason, if reason were not absent; and most irrational and unaccountable indeed are all her ladyship's ways. Her capriciousness is proverbial, and her agency is generally illustrated by comparison with the most unsteady elements of the physical world. We say "Fashion that fluctuating lady," alluding to the ebbing and flowing of the tide—and "Fashion that weathercock," ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... o'clock before he reached the palace gates. It seemed to him that they had deterred his progress for some unknown purpose, and the thought of those he had left behind caused him profound uneasiness. Native treachery was proverbial, and no doubt Nehal Singh felt himself justified in any conduct that seemed wise to him. In any case, there was no return. The crowd in front of Nicholson sank back like a receding tide as he rode through the open gates and then closed in behind, following in one dense stream as ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... approached us was a thing I have never seen equalled. The independence of American children is proverbial; but democratic institutions never produced anything more saucily self-reliant than this little Briton. Without looking at us, or deigning any apology for the great gate,—which, it seems, is a mere barricade, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... Notwithstanding the proverbial variety of the climate, there is no nation under the sun so fond of Pic-Nic parties as the English; and yet how seldom are their pleasant dreams of rural repasts in the open air fated ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... his undertakings were successful to such a degree that his good fortune had become proverbial. That he took any part in an enterprise, sufficed to make it ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... galleries which they dig can often be traced for hundreds of yards; and Mr. Hamlet Clarke even asserts that in one case they have tunnelled under the bed of a river where it is a quarter of a mile wide. This beats Brunel on his own ground into the proverbial cocked hat, both ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... world. But God foresaw, and compelled their ancestor to foretell, the corruption of the blood which would reduce his descendants to be servants of servants to their brethren; and now the ruins of their cities, and of the people descended from Canaan, are proverbial alike in the libraries and slave markets ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... tyrant—that tortures the mind if held to, and the body if cast off." Urged by the darkness and the silence of his companion, the rein of his speech had loosened. In that moment he was not Chilcote the member for East Wark, whose moods and silences were proverbial, but Chilcote the man whose mind craved the ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... aware that the self-illusions of inventors have become proverbial, but I have, nevertheless, the most complete certainty of having discovered an infallible means of bringing produce from all parts of the world into the United States, and reciprocally to transport ours, with a very important reduction ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... the Khalif was proverbial. When the Mongol army was investing Miafarakain, the chief, Malik Kamal, told his people that everything he had should be at the service of those in need: "Thank God, I am not like Mosta'sim, a worshipper ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of the President has become proverbial. The square chin, unconsciously protruded in argument, indicates definitely his capacity, as a British critic has put it, "to dig his toes in and hold on." On matters of method, however, where a basic principle is not involved, he is flexible. According as you approve or disapprove of him, he is ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... that it is no easier to make a Jew into a Russian by force than to change the skin of the proverbial Ethiopian; nor is it likely that the Russian Government ever entertained the idea of making such an attempt. If it had any definite plan at all, it was to render things so uncomfortable to the unfortunate Hebrews that they would ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... his lips whereby his keenest, most delighted listener could have probed to the heart of his mood. To the loss of his claim was attributed all his pyrotechnics, and no one, unless it was Rickart, was aware of the old proverbial "woman in the case," who had planted the sting ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... noted for their enterprise generally, and for their competition with the Medici in particular. They had agencies in all the chief cities of Europe and the East, but their reputation for avarice and sharp dealing was proverbial. Perhaps no family was quite so unpopular in Florence. Their traditions were aristocratic, whilst the Medici were champions of ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... qualities of a commentator. First of all, he possessed clearness, the chief requisite for a commentary, which undertakes to explain a work unintelligible to its readers. "To write like Rashi" has become a proverbial expression for "to write clearly and intelligibly." Rashi always or nearly always uses the expression one expects. He finds the explanation that obtrudes itself because it is simple and easy; he excels in unravelling [unraveling sic] difficulties ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... sheepskins of unwashed Russia. At Helsingfors there is nothing, save the soldiery, to remind one of the proximity of Tsarland. And out in the country it is the same. The line from Mikkeli traverses a fair and prosperous district, as unlike the monotonous scenery over the border as the proverbial dock and daisy. Here are no squalid hovels and roofless sheds where half-starved cattle share the misery of their owners; no rotting crops and naked pastures; but snug homestead, flower gardens, and neat wooden fences encircling fields of golden grain and rich ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... doctrines derived from the ancient Manichees, spread rapidly through Provence and Languedoc. The clergy of the Catholic Church were regarded with loathing and contempt. "Viler than a priest," "I would as soon be a priest," became proverbial expressions. The Papacy had lost all authority with all classes, from the great feudal princes down to the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his name has been familiar; and, to this day, the wild Arabs will tell wondrous stories about him, as they gather at night round their blazing fires. His grandeur and wisdom have ever since been proverbial; and even Jesus, when He wished to compare the lilies of the field with something very magnificent, spoke of "Solomon ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... himself only with a bottle of soda-water, imperceptibly flavoured with cognac by the hands of a ministering angel at the refreshment-counter of the Waterloo Station, and then hurrying on at once in a hansom to that dingy street in Soho where Mr. Medler sat in his parlour, like the proverbial spider waiting for the advent of some ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the patronage of princes, or withered by their neglect; but now they are encouraged and paid by the people, and reap where they have sown, whether kings will or not. The poverty of authors was once proverbial; but now the only authors who are poor are poor authors. Good learning, integrity, and ability, are well compensated in all the professions. Some one remarked to Mr. Webster, "That the profession of the law was crowded."—"Yes," said he, "rather ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... set out alone for a tramp up the mountain road in which the two men had been shot down. A number of men under the direction of the sheriff were scouring the lofty timberland for the deadly marksmen. He knew it would turn out to be as futile as the proverbial effort to find the needle ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... by the Hindus, and was abundantly used in all their religions ceremonies. Its leaves are very long, and taper to a sharp needle-like point, of which the extreme acuteness was proverbial; whence the epithet applied to a clever man, 'sharp as the point of Ku[s']a-grass.' Its botanical name is ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... the travellers they met; but no one could answer them. The first messenger appeared on the terrace and announced to the Pharaoh that Tahoser could not be found. The Pharaoh stretched out his sceptre, and the messenger fell dead, in spite of the proverbial hardness of the Egyptian skull. A second came up; he stumbled against the body of his comrade stretched on the slabs; he trembled, for he saw ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... held by the hand a youth cast in beauty's mould, all elegance and perfect grace; so fair that his comeliness deserved to be proverbial; for he was as a green bough or the tender young of the roe, ravishing every heart with his loveliness and subduing every soul with his coquetry and amorous ways.[FN265] It was of him the poet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... possessed of every external accomplishment. His beauty, celebrated by the poets, was become proverbial among all nations. He was the delight of every company, and scarcely anything was noticed in it but himself. One day, while he was unperceived, his beauty became the subject of conversation. After it had been much praised, one ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the case of Stevenson. If "Dr. Jekyll," "The Master of Ballantrae," "The Child's Garden of Verses," and "Across the Plains" had been each of them one shade less perfectly done than they were, everyone would have seen that they were all parts of the same message; but by succeeding in the proverbial miracle of being in five places at once, he has naturally convinced others that he was five different people. But the real message of Stevenson was as simple as that of Mohamet, as moral as that of Dante, as confident as that of Whitman, and as ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... their vigour, their city was besieged by the Gauls, and saved by an animal of proverbial stupidity; but this could not have happened when Attila was under the walls, and the energy of the citizens was gone. The taking or saving the city, in the first instance, would have been equally accidental, and the consequences of short duration; but, in the latter days, the fall of Rome ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... to convey his final word of defiance to the children who had cast him off. Not that he would ever have a dollar to leave to them, but for the satisfaction it would give him to cut the traitors off with the proverbial shilling. Beset with the notion that this was an ideal way to show his contempt for his offspring, he went to the safety deposit vault and took there from the worthless document known as his last will and testament and in the presence of witnesses destroyed ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Elite Club Bryce Denning first saw him. He came in with Shaw McLaren, a young man whose acquaintance was considered as most definitely satisfactory. Vainly Bryce Denning had striven to obtain any notice whatever from McLaren, whose exclusiveness was proverbial. Who then was this stranger he appeared so anxious to entertain? His look of supreme satisfaction, his high-bred air, and peculiar intonation quickly satisfied Bryce as ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... however was the proverbial last straw to Mrs. Bertram. It haunted her by day and night; she dreamt of it, sleeping, she pondered over it, waking. Six short months would speedily disappear, and then she would be ruined; she could not meet the bill, ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... question that vitally concerned the individual man was considered beneath their attention. Like the wise modern teacher they made no distinction between the religious and the secular. Everything that influenced man's acts and ideals possessed for them profound religious import. While the proverbial epigrammatic form of their teaching was not conducive to a logical or complete treatment of their theme, yet in a series of concise, dramatic maxims they dealt with almost every phase of man's domestic, economic, legal, and social life. They presented clearly man's duty to animals, to himself, ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... original—concerts, mythological representations, suppers, fireworks, comedies, readings, always something new, often in the form of a surprise or a joke. Of the latter, the best known is the one played on the Count of Guise whose fondness for mushrooms had become proverbial; on one occasion when he had consumed an immense number of them at table, his valet, who had been bribed, took in all his doublets; on trying to put them on again, he found them too narrow by fully four inches. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... of the Sun stood reared aloft on columns, glittering with gold and precious stones, while polished ivory formed the ceilings, and silver the doors. The workmanship surpassed the material; [Footnote: See Proverbial Expressions.] for upon the walls Vulcan had represented earth, sea, and skies, with their inhabitants. In the sea were the nymphs, some sporting in the waves, some riding on the backs of fishes, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... rendered inarticulate by the very force and variety of his feelings. A little, rotund, ugly man, Sid Hahn, with the eyes of a dreamer, the wide, mobile mouth of a humourist, the ears of a comic ol'-clo'es man. His generosity was proverbial, and it ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books; I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as a means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly as, to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... one of the actors was plain enough, for his words came loud, clear, and angry to where we stood; and it was evident that he was taking the part of one of the Indian girls, who was weeping, probably from blows inflicted by one of her countrymen, whose gallantry is not proverbial. ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... it has come about that Job has become proverbial for patience. I suppose that it has arisen out of the verse in the Epistle of St. James about the patience of Job; but, like the passage in the Book of Numbers which attributes an extreme meekness to Moses, it seems to me to be either a very infelicitous description, or else a ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Modern writers have given the general name of Sabellians to all these tribes. The Sabines, like most other mountaineers, were brave, hardy, and frugal; and even the Romans looked up to them with admiration on account of their proverbial ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... may be well to remark that I have never observed a case of delirium tremens nor of any of the other serious consequences that in other parts of the world frequently afflict the habitual drinker. The only ill effects I have seen are the proverbial headache and thirst, but even these are very rare and usually occur only after periods of long and uninterrupted indulgence. As a rule such effects are at once dispelled by taking hot taro-top soup ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Malay scholar of the two, but his vocabulary only extended to asking for a durian, Good morning! How are you? and the favourite Malay proverbial saying,—"Apa boleh booat"—It was to be, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... men of mark fitted for college. He offered to the preceptress also a home in his family, in order that a well-educated and refined woman might find it more pleasant and profitable to teach in the village. The hospitality of his house was proverbial. The old mansion still stands, a large, low, two-story yellow house, with long front and side yards, and a grassy lawn between them and the road, with massive, protecting elms, twice as high as the house in front and around it; spacious barns extend a little ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... and proverbial humility never permitted the ghost of such a suggestion to affright my soul! Judging from the confusion which greeted my entrance, I am forced to conclude that it was mal apropos. But prudent regard for the reputation of the household urged me ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... the insult shattered Bud Ellis's self-control. Prompted by blind fury, the great fist of the man shot out, hammer-like, and Clayton crumpled at his feet. It was a blow that would have felled the proverbial ox; it was the counterpart of many other blows, plus berserker rage, that had split pine boards for sheer joy in the ability to do so. These thoughts came sluggishly to the inflamed brain, and Ellis all at once dropped to his knees beside the limp, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... [a] A proverbial saying, the exact force of which we cannot determine. The reading of H. 1. 13 may be translated, 'No fool on a board (or shield ?),' that is, a clown or ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... "Your proverbial generosity justifies my new appeal. You will accept, I am sure, the ten tickets which I enclose, when you know that your confreres, the Messieurs Axenstein, have ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... most admirable of his lyric and elegiac poems, Musset's best Comedies and Proverbes (proverbial sayings exemplified in dramatic action), deserve a place. Written in prose for readers of the Revue des Deux Mondes, their scenic qualities were discovered only in 1847, when the actress Madame Allan presented ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... "I sent streighte certeyne gentlemen to see their weapons and armouries laid down, and to guard the munition and victual, then left, from spoil; then put in certeyne bandes, who streighte fell to execution. There were 600 slayn." After this exploit, "Grey's faith"—Graia fides—became proverbial even on the Continent. Grey appears to have a touch of the Puritan (by anticipation) in his composition, for we find him using very unctuous language about one John Cheeke, who "so wrought in him God's Spirit, plainlie declairing him a child of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... of the Carthaginian race was proverbial, but even among them he was remarkable. His head was well placed on his shoulders; his carriage was upright and commanding; his forehead lofty; his eye, though soft and gentle at ordinary times, was said to be terrible in time of battle. ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... awful day when he had to run about all day in the rain to borrow money enough to bury her!—and his children had been put in a charitable institution, he took up painting as a profession. Then the hard times, which are proverbial with struggling artists without means, began; only they were easier to bear, as he was suffering alone. In days of dispossess and starvation he had at least his art to console him, and he remained true to her in all those years of ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... were all and every welcome to Neuwied, and the place even now contains Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Mennonites and Quakers, all living in peace together. The United Brethren (or Moravians) founded a colony here in 1750. The honesty of these people is proverbial, their simplicity of life is patriarchal, and the artist at least will not object to their manners, for the sake of the pleasing costume of their women, whose white caps look akin to the peaceful, rural background of their life, red and blue bands on these caps respectively ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... trait of the savage. Some white men draw. All Indians draw. Some white men are cunning. All Indians are cunning. Some white men are humorous. All Indians are witty. Dry wit, with a proverbial philosophy in it which would have delighted the soul of Tupper, is indigenous to the Indian. The Indian is the finest epigrammist on earth. His sentences are pithy and sententious, because short—never long and involved. A book of Indian wit ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... he was the pink of politeness, and his gallantry to the fair sex was proverbial. When he was caught at last, pent in "stone walls and chains and iron grates," their grief was in proportion to his rare merits and his great fame. Butler says, that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... in the newspapers stating that the eccentric amateur painter and heir of one branch of the Aylwins had at last gone to Japan, and that as his deep interest in a certain charming beauty of an un-English type was proverbial, it was expected that he would return with a Japanese, or ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... so, there was no conclusive evidence of any criminal act. The patient might be a confirmed opium-eater, and the symptoms heightened by deliberate deception. The cunning of these unfortunates is proverbial and is only equalled by their secretiveness and mendacity. It would be quite possible for this man to feign profound stupor so long as he was watched, and then, when left alone for a few minutes, to nip out of bed and help himself from some secret store of the drug. This would be ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... of clouds advancing higher up the sky smothers the whole quiet gulf below with an impenetrable darkness, in which the sound of the falling showers can be heard beginning and ceasing abruptly—now here, now there. Indeed, these cloudy nights are proverbial with the seamen along the whole west coast of a great continent. Sky, land, and sea disappear together out of the world when the Placido—as the saying is—goes to sleep under its black poncho. The few stars left ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... for the purpose, when a plenary indulgence is granted to all who go to look upon it, to confess and to receive the holy communion. It is only the most ignorant and superstitious who are found to believe in this fable; indeed, it has now become proverbial with a Spaniard, when told of any thing that seems impossible, to say, Eso y la cara de Dios estan en Jaen,—That and the face of God are ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... these have been subjected to restoration. The first chapel on the south side belonged to the Dyers' Company. When the principal trade of Coventry was the manufacture of woollen and worsted stuffs and the production of a special blue thread, so excellent that it gave rise to a proverbial expression, "he is true Coventry Blue", the Dyers were an important Company.[6] A chantry known as Tale's was probably attached to this chapel, as the salary of the priest, L5 6s. 8d., was paid by the Dyers' Company of London. An upper chamber ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... light stood a woman. Her face was hidden by the veil that drooped from the folds upon her head; she was dressed according to the rule of the order in a gown of the colour become proverbial. Her bare feet were hidden; if the General could have seen them, he would have known how appallingly thin she had grown; and yet in spite of the thick folds of her coarse gown, a mere covering and no ornament, he could guess how tears, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... class of readers, since it is in truth a store house of wit and wisdom ... The old fashioned dress in which these acute strictures on human life appear, while it takes little or nothing from their intelligibility, adds much to their force and liveliness. The lovers of proverbial wit, for many of these characters are strings of judicious adages, are therefore greatly obliged to Mr. Bliss for his pleasing republication of so pregnant a volume. The notes are instructive without prolixity: the index is extremely ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... reader," I should very strongly advise him to begin his studies (or at least his enjoyment) thereof, not with "Sapho," but with Gauthier de Costes, Seigneur de la Calprenede, himself according to Tallemant almost the proverbial "Gascon et demi"; a tragic dramatist, as well as a romantic writer; a favourite of Mme. de Sevigne, who seldom went wrong in her preferences, except when she preferred her very disagreeable daughter to her ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... in her to turn the proverbial new leaf, not for the sake of winning her 'man,' but from the simple wish to be 'good.' I interested Mrs. Kingdon in her and told her where she was, but did not dream of such good luck for—Bobbie ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... quality of moral experience which remains almost unaffected by social modifications of any sort, the proverbial sayings of a people must always possess a special psychological interest for thinkers. In this kind of folklore the oral and the written literature of Japan is rich to a degree that would require a large book to exemplify. ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... since published a paper on Malay proverbs in the Transactions of the Straits branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. I have not been able to obtain it, but I understand that it contains a very copious and valuable collection of Malay proverbial philosophy.] ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... named the Sheffield of Spain. Despite the importation of cutlery from England and Germany, Albacete is still famous for its daggers, which arc held in high repute by Spaniards. They are formidable weapons, of coarse manufacture, but with richly ornamented handles; and they frequently bear proverbial inscriptions suitable to their ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... leap up weakly against their prison bars. There was nothing at all remarkable in the house itself, except its furniture and panelings of black oak, and two pictures, to which was attached a story bearing on the hereditary failing which had made the family proverbial. The first was the likeness of a lovely girl, in the court dress of James the Second's time, with beautiful hazel eyes, half timid, half trusting, like a pet doe's. The second represented a woman, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... was to join, came into harbour soon after I reached Halifax. This I was sorry for, as I found myself in very good quarters. I had letters of introduction to the best families. The place is proverbial for hospitality; and the society of the young ladies, who are both virtuous and lovely, tended in some degree to reform and polish the rough and libertine manners which I had contracted in my career. I had many ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the ceremonies that were practiced for consulting the oracle of Trophonius. Every man that went down into his cave, never laughed his whole life after. This gave occasion to the proverbial saying concerning those of a melancholy air: "He has consulted Trophonius." Plato relates, that the two brothers, Agamedes and Trophonius, having built the temple of Apollo, and asked the god for a reward what ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... dignity upon his son, but the sanction of the court of St. Petersburg was required, and no one could have been more likely to obtain what he desired than the prince royal himself, for the fascination of his manners had become proverbial. He accordingly went to St. Petersburg, remaining on his way some time at Mittau, the capital of Courland, where he succeeded in winning the esteem and affection of the inhabitants of the duchy. The czarina soon after confirmed the nomination of the prince royal. Her consent was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Campbell, a jolly, hearty Irish-American, with a taste for good books, and an antipathy to negroes, as keen as the proverbial hatred of the devil for holy water. Campbell wrote a book entitled "Negromania," published in 1851, in which his creed was set forth in strong language. He was a regular bidder at book auctions, where his burly form and loud voice made ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... might advantageously sustain a comparison. He was of middle height; but his person was so admirably shaped and so well proportioned that more than once in his struggles with Porthos he had overcome the giant whose physical strength was proverbial among the Musketeers. His head, with piercing eyes, a straight nose, a chin cut like that of Brutus, had altogether an indefinable character of grandeur and grace. His hands, of which he took little care, were the despair of Aramis, who cultivated his with ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have become proverbial for their audacious and delicious disregard of truth, and the Book of Jonah is "briny" from beginning to end. It contains only forty-eight verses, but its brevity is no defect. On the contrary, that is one of its greatest charms. The mind takes in the whole story at once, and enjoys it ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... 1874 an Old Catholic priest of Switzerland, about to follow Pere Hyacinth's example in abandoning celibacy, announced his betrothal in the following manner: "I marry because I wish to remain an honorable man. In the seventeenth century it was a proverbial expression, 'As corrupt as a priest,' and this might be said to-day. I marry, therefore, because I wish to get out of the Ultramontane ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... little girl, who was growing almost frightened by his frowning silence, "you should always, always remember that when a man has made a fool of himself, the best thing he can do is to clear out, and not return to his folly like the proverbial dog!" ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... subordinate Parliaments when they were governing the whole Empire? If the advocates of the proposal really believed in it let them go out as missionaries into the wilderness, and, if they escaped the proverbial fate of missionaries, convert the heathen voters to their creed. Thereupon Lord BRASSEY, his brow bloody but unbowed, intimated that "a time would come," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... "tickets for soup." They introduced me to pleasant companions and kind friends, who entertained me hospitably, enabled me to pass my time pleasantly, and gave me much practical good advice. Indeed, so far as my experience goes, the hospitality of Victoria ought to become proverbial. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... and talk despondently of this extraordinary disease of the vine, and not one of them seems to think it incumbent on him to act, and do his best to stop it." He fronted his client like a man who accuses an enormous public delinquency. "Nobody makes a stir! The apathy of Englishmen will become proverbial. Pray, try it, Sir Austin! Pray, allow me. Such a wine cannot disagree at any hour. Do! I am allowanced two glasses three hours before dinner. Stomachic. I find it agree with me surprisingly: quite a new man. I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... prudently administered. Even in manufacturing towns, where a majority of the voters live by their daily wages, it is not so often the recklessness as the moderation of public expenditure that surprises an old-fashioned observer. "The beggar is in the saddle at last," cries Proverbial Wisdom. "Why, in the name of all former experience, doesn't he ride to the Devil?" Because in the very act of mounting he ceased to be a beggar and became part owner of the piece of property he bestrides. The last thing we need be anxious about is property. It always has friends or the means of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... atmosphere pervaded it, and the glorious and divine principle of doing unto others as they would have others do unto them governed its inhabitants; and, therefore, it was not strange that its farmers and storekeepers kept good the proverbial honesty and hospitality of their progenitors. Tradition said (but written history was silent) that a few of those who landed at Plymouth Rock separated from the main body, and took up their abode further in the interior; and ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... this had kept the first whale down until it had drowned and, marvelous to relate, we had got the both of them—and a tidy addition to our cargo they proceeded to make. The luck of the second mate's boat became proverbial after ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... ago, Croydon was the centre of a great Surrey industry. The Croydon colliers were proverbial. They supplied London with coal, that is, charcoal, before the days of "sea-coal," the coal which blackens London smoke to-day. Then it reached London by sea. One Grimes, or Grimme, the greatest of the Croydon colliers, who lived ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... proverbial that there are certain things which flesh and blood cannot bear. Such a question as this, propounded in such a manner, at such a time, and by such a person, proved (at least, as far as, Mark's flesh and blood were concerned) to be one of them. He looked up ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... here is proverbial all over Palestine. I have heard it told of them as a common practice, that they recite the Lord's Prayer and the Fathhah, or opening chapter of the Koran, alternately, on the ground that these are both very sublime and beautiful; and it is said that they baptize in the name of the Father, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... proverb, probably already familiar to His hearers 'If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch'; Peter said 'Declare unto us this parable' (Matt. 15:14, 15); and Luke 5:36 is a proverb or proverbial expression, rather than a parable, which name it bears.... So, upon the other hand, those are called 'proverbs' in St. John, which if not strictly parables, yet claim much closer affinity to the parable than to the proverb, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... must, however, remark, that this example, which seems to militate against the assertion we made of the comparative inapplicability of the Method of Difference to cases of pure observation, is really one of those exceptions which, according to a proverbial expression, prove the general rule. For in this case, in which Nature, in her experiment, seems to have imitated the type of the experiments made by man, she has only succeeded in producing the likeness ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... allusion to the proverbial nickname applied to the Chians—[Greek: Chios apopaton], "shitting Chian." On account of their notoriously pederastic habits, the inhabitants of this island were known throughout Greece as 'loose-arsed' Chians, and therefore ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... and delicate luxury. The food was of the most wholesome and primitive kind. The richest meat, the finest butter, and best meal that ever delighted man's palate were here eaten with a relish which health and labor only know. The hospitality of the people was profuse and proverbial." ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... pleadings had about as much effect upon the Ministerial steam-roller as the proverbial water on a duck's back. With a rush the Natives' Land Bill was dispatched from the Lower House to the Senate, adopted hurriedly by the Senate, returned to the Lower House, and went at the same pace to Government House, and there receiving the Governor-General's signature, it immediately ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... laughed, for Fil's spelling was proverbial in the form, and was often of a purely phonetic character. Miss Strong had periodical crusades to improve it, but generally gave them up as a bad job, and recommended constant use of ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... never quite make out whether it was not intended as a burlesque. There may be enough of sentiment attached to the army bean to entitle it to the honor of being immortalized in song, but to me it was an abomination, less poetic in name and association than the proverbial "sow-belly" bacon, so dear to the heart ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... accommodation. Take, for instance, the Briggs and Stratton Company, which in order to draw high grade workers built its new factory in one of the best sections of Milwaukee. The workrooms are as clean as the proverbial Dutch woman's doorstep. From the top of the benches to the ceiling the walls are glass to ensure daylight in every corner, and by night the system of indirect lighting gives such perfectly diffused light that not a heavy shadow falls anywhere. And ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... Through the Red Cross the Japanese people sent over $100,000 to the sufferers of San Francisco, and the gift was accepted with gratitude by our people. The courtesy of the Japanese, nationally and individually, has become proverbial. To no other country has there been such an increasing number of visitors from this land as to Japan. In return, Japanese have come here in great numbers. They are welcome, socially and intellectually, in all our colleges and institutions ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... base and prostitute gang of lurking assassins who stab in the dark, and whose poisoned daggers he had already experienced. Ritson himself was a fairly venomous critic, and the "Ritsonian" style has become proverbial. Nowadays authors do not usually die of criticism, not even susceptible poets. Critics can still be severe enough, but they are just and generous, and never descend to that scurrilous personal abuse of authors which inflicted such severe wounds a century ago, and ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... to peregrinations in the old bath-chair. According to his account the period had been one of much tribulation, when patience and forbearance had been tried to their limits by the unnatural conduct of Miss Mollie Farrell. Instead of behaving like the proverbial ministering angel, Mollie proved uncertain, coy, and hard to please, and so full of mischievous pranks that Jack declared that his hair was turning white, though, if the truth be told, he ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... add, I pray God to take you to His powerful and holy keeping." After this pleasantry the king, delighted at the gay termination of a somewhat serious scene, went, or rather vanished; for to use a proverbial expression, he ran like a thief. As soon as I was alone with my sister-in-law, I told her all that had passed. "I see," said she, "that the king is fearful of offending the duc de Choiseul, and giving ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Alathea's strong prejudice against the race-tracks was proverbial. "So that's what you're after!" he ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... queer farrago of Scripture lessons which had never been explained to her, and were now nearly forgotten, it seemed to Mrs. Churton that it was almost a blank with regard to spiritual things, like that proverbial clean sheet of paper on which anything good or bad may be written. It troubled her somewhat, and this was the one cloud on that fair prospect, that her daughter would have so much to do with Fan's mind. She ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... Spanish muleteers. This man was our old acquaintance, Gaspard Caderousse. His wife, on the contrary, whose maiden name had been Madeleine Radelle, was pale, meagre, and sickly-looking. Born in the neighborhood of Arles, she had shared in the beauty for which its women are proverbial; but that beauty had gradually withered beneath the devastating influence of the slow fever so prevalent among dwellers by the ponds of Aiguemortes and the marshes of Camargue. She remained nearly ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not use quotation marks to enclose well-known nicknames, titles of books, proverbial phrases, or to indicate one's ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... they ever find it? Seems to me it'll be like hunting for the proverbial needle in ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... and he is as devoted to Donna Catherine as she is to him. I heard they were proverbial for their mutual affection and domestic happiness. How could he so have loved before?" demanded, somewhat ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... but it arose from the peculiar position in which he found himself placed at the outset of his western career, and it is difficult to see how anything short of actual experience could have made his error manifest. The purity of his life was proverbial, and was the theme of comment among his survivors for years after his death. He foresaw that his adopted country was destined for a glorious future. "The flourishing cities and towns of this Dominion," says one of has eulogists, "are enduring ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... proverbial; we remember to have met with a story which is said to be connected with the foundation of an opulent mercantile house which has flourished for some generations. Saunders, the traveler, entered a shop in London and enquired for the head of the house; one of the clerks asked what he wanted; ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... the Boers may not be proverbial, it must be remembered to their everlasting credit that they, as did the Southerners in the American Civil War, robbed the cradle and the grave to defend their country. Boys who were mere children ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... lemon-peel, cinnamon, brandy, almonds, raisins—and two or three scruts. There is a world of poetry, beauty, romance, in scruts—though you have to have been brought up on them to appreciate it. Scruts have passed into the proverbial philosophy of the district. "Him's a pudden with more scruts than raisins to 'm" is a criticism not infrequently heard. It implies respect, even admiration. Of Emily Wrackgarth herself people often said, in reference to her likeness to her father, "Her's ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... years of their married life were spent on the island of Ischia, where Pescara had a villa and a small estate, and there they lived in an idyllic happiness which has almost become proverbial. The young husband was not so studiously inclined as was his gifted wife, but he was a manly fellow, much given to athletic pursuits, and with a decided taste for a military career, and Vittoria was loved by him in a most tender and noble fashion. ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... atrocious wrong or insult, as when a king, enraged at the slaying of his son and seduction of his daughter, has the offender hanged, an instance famous in Nathan's story, so that Hagbard's hanging and hempen necklace were proverbial. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... preaching to awaken souls, was considered very strange and fanatical. The church I preached in had high pews, which prevented my seeing the occupants. I was told that it was full, and certainly there were faces visible here and there; but the whole congregation was so still, that the dropping of the proverbial "pin" might have been heard. It was all very chilling and dead, no "Amens!" or "Glory!" as in Cornwall; indeed, the stillness had such an effect upon me, that I found it difficult to get on. After making two or three hard appeals, and meeting with nothing ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... back under her rule, Russia now turned to Serbia. Greece and Serbia were also furious that Bulgaria should suddenly acquire territory without their having a share in it, thus making her the biggest nation of the Balkans. So Serbia and Russia intrigued together. The result was that, like the proverbial bolt out of a clear sky, Serbia hurled a declaration of war at Bulgaria and began marching her army across the frontier ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... mustered, the lookouts stationed, and the rest of them had settled themselves down for sleep between the guns, out of the way of passing feet, the forecastle of the Congress offered a very decent promenade, magnificent compared to that proverbial of the poops of small vessels—"two steps and overboard." Then began the steady pace to and fro, which to me was natural and inherited, easily maintained and consistent with thought—indeed, productive of it. Not every officer has this ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Mount Atlas, had hitherto been the non plus ultra or impassable limit of European navigation, and had accordingly received its ordinary name from a negative term in the Portuguese language, as implying that there was no navigation beyond; and respecting which a proverbial saying was then current, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... many minutes afterwards, the wind, true to its proverbial character of fickleness, died away, and we were left without any guide by which to steer our course across the trackless deep. Still we pulled on, I fancied, in the direction of the coast. We should have been wise had we laid on ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... wanting, as in our present history, of its appearance as late as June. Even one flight comprises myriads upon myriads passing imagination, to which the drops of rain or the sands of the sea are the only fit comparison; and hence it is almost a proverbial mode of expression in the East (as may be illustrated by the sacred pages to which we just now referred), by way of describing a vast invading army, to liken it to the locusts. So dense are they, when ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the damsels of her day were not morbidly nice in such matters, more than once had the nuptial cup eluded her expectant lips, enfin, she was nearing her thirtieth year: such an opportunity, as Mr. Bunthorne has it, might not occur again. With the proverbial blindness of those unwilling to see, the old man did nothing further in regard to Lord Mark Kerr's communication; that nobleman, annoyed at the indifference with which his well-meant warning had been received, forbade his kinsman the house, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... WISE MEN IN THE EAST.—A traveller, doing a walking tour in Egypt, from Cairo and back again, describes himself as a "Cairopedist," and adds that it's just the place for Members of that profession to prosper, as "Corn in Egypt" is proverbial. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... keep that law. Sin is the suicidal action of the human will. It destroys the power to do right, which is man's true freedom. The effect of vicious habit in diminishing a man's ability to resist temptation is proverbial. But what is habit but a constant repetition of wrong decisions, every single one of which reacts upon the faculty that put them forth, and renders it less strong and less energetic, to do the contrary. Has the old debauchee, just ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... Scottish Dictionary points out the frugal and temperate Scot; and, in illustration, may be contrasted with the proverbial invitation of the better feeding English, "Will you come and take ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... that—if he omitted to perforate the empty shell—he incurred the risk of becoming spell-bound, etc.? Marriages seem at the present day as much dreaded in the month of May as they were in the days of Ovid, when it was a proverbial ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... delightful morning. Busy as the proverbial bee once more, I see. I can never cease to admire the industry and model neatness of the Massachusetts housekeeper. And how is your charming daughter this ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... knew of old that her little parties were the most enjoyable ones in the camp. Even Dr. Brownlee had sent a cordial message of acceptance, for though he was surprised at the invitation, coming as it did from a stranger whom he did not even know by sight, he attributed it to the proverbial Western hospitality, and was glad of anything which could bring him into connection with the people among whom he was to live. Early that morning Mr. and Mrs. Fisher had gone away for a long, tedious day of shopping, and an hour later Allie and Marjorie had invaded the kitchen for four hours of ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... "strike-breakers" and as "special officers." The first and most important thing, then, in this chapter is to prove, with perhaps undue detail, the ancient saying that "you must be a thief to catch a thief," and that possibly for that proverbial reason many private detectives are ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... It has been in a large measure dissipated by Parkman's masterly histories, but the ideas born of popular fiction die hard. They are due in part to the theory that cruelty implies cowardice, just as we say that a bully must be a coward, another mistaken bit of proverbial wisdom. ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... a civilized spectator to see how many people can be stowed away to sleep in one small igloo and under one blanket; but the proverbial illustration of a box of sardines would almost represent a skirmish line in comparison. Each one is rolled up into a little ball, or else arms, legs and bodies are so inextricably interwoven, that it would be impossible for any but the owners to unravel them. And these bodies are ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... the Prince of Darkness, saith proverbial philosophy, let us concede his due. If, then, a single ray of good illuminates at some happy moment the dark spirit of these roughs, let it be recorded with that bare, unfledged truth which is so much better a bird than uncandor with the finest ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... Arkwright of American cotton machinery, Eli Whitney, with his cotton gin and rifle improvements, and John Fitch, with his experiments with steam, are the most distinguished among a host of men who made Yankee ingenuity and Yankee skill proverbial. ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... had measured her for his victim verified, if ever man did, the proverbial expression of the iron hand under the velvet glove. Under all his gentle suavities there was a fixed, inflexible will, a calm self-restraint, and a composed philosophical measurement of others, that fitted him to bear despotic rule over an impulsive, unguarded nature. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... possible here in America. England and South Carolina are mother and daughter, you know; and under the influence of free trade, we're bound to be very intimate. All we of the South ask is that our institutions shall speak for themselves, and I can trust a Britisher's proverbial love of fair play to report us as he finds us. What do you say? I'm going down to the island for a week on Wednesday; will you ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... persecution facing the Christian healers, but as time goes on, even the unbelieving and conservative shall be brought to a knowledge of the truth. Many things unaccepted and unestablished to-day shall be proverbial platitudes ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... reward;" who said, "Procrastination is the thief of time;" who said, "Time and tide wait for no man" and "Necessity is the mother of invention;" good old Franklin, the Josh Billings of the eighteenth century—though, sooth to say, the latter transcends him in proverbial originality as much as he falls short of him in correctness of orthography. What sort of tactics did Franklin pursue? He pondered over his last words for as much as two weeks, and then when the time came, he said, "None ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... transformation told of in Ariel's song, the bones of the drowned man have been turned to coral, and his eyes to pearls (Tempest, Act i, sc. 2). The strange and sometimes morbid attraction of opposites finds expression in a queer old English proverbial saying given in the Two Gentlemen of Verona: "Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes". The likeness to drops of dew appears where we read of the dew that it was "Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass" (Midsummer Night's Dream, Act i, sc. 1), and a ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... wild, naughty, impulsive Annie Forest was the most popular girl in the school. She was always in scrapes—she was scarcely ever out of hot water—her promises of amendment were truly like the proverbial pie-crust; but she was so lovable, so kind-hearted, so saucy and piquante and pretty, that very few could resist the nameless charm which she possessed. The little ones adored Annie, who was kindness itself to them; ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... licence has been granted, will—in a general-dealer kind of way—be having a good time of it till Pantomime Season slaps him on the back with a cheery "Here we are again!" and then he will have another and a better time. No doubt of Sir Gus's success, or in abbreviated proverbial Latin, "De ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... praises of Tarentum—that beautiful maritime city of the Calabrian Gulf, whose attractions were such as to make the delights of Tarentum a common proverbial expression. But what were these delights as celebrated by our poet?—the perfection of its honey, the excellence of its olives, the abundance of its grapes, its lengthened spring and temperate winter. For these, its merits, did Horace ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... earlier instances of this proverbial expression quoted in our First Vol. pp. 325. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... mistakes or misapprehensions may have crept into the records. Occasionally we can see signs of something being mistaken for a miracle which was really not one. For example, the finding of a piece of money in the fish's mouth may have been the mistake of a proverbial expression, common among fishermen, and used by Matthew in his original Hebrew Gospel, but which the Greek translator, ignorant of the popular phrase, considered to ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... all these are known to the world. The country they attacked was one which had long been the faithful ally of France, which, instead of giving cause of jealousy to any other Power, had been, for ages, proverbial for the simplicity and innocence of its manners, and which had acquired and preserved the esteem of all the nations of Europe; which had almost, by the common consent of mankind, been exempted from the sound of war, and marked out as a land of Goshen, safe ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... record, and to the last of her life sacredly preserved the treasures and traditions of her family, a family bound up—as it is quite unnecessary to explain to any one in good society—with all that is most venerable and heroic in the history of the Republic. Miss Carew never relaxed the proverbial hospitality of her house, even when she remained its sole representative. She continued to preside at her table with dignity and state, and to set an example of excessive modesty and gentle decorum to a generation of restless ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... said. "I did not mean to be nasty, but this accident is the proverbial last straw. It seems to me that I have borne all that I can. Though I was willing to give my life in the service of my country, I did not imagine that my death agonies would be so long drawn out, for I realize now that I have ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the composition of "Chips" to make anyone believe that he had descended from a family in the far-off antiquity who were bears; for he was heavy and bearlike in all his actions, especially in going up or coming down a ladder, and his caution was proverbial ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... aware of his impotence he listened to the tumult of the Die-Hards, hopeful when it was loud, despairing when there came a moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek chorus drew loudly upon her store of proverbial philosophy and her memory of Scripture texts. Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards the scene of battle, but only blundered into sunken plots and pits in the Dutch garden. Finally he squatted beside Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... The proverbial difficulty of finding a needle in a haystack seemed child's play compared to that of finding a ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... industry of Lord Brougham has become almost proverbial. His public labors extended over a period of upward of sixty years, during which he ranged over many fields—of law, literature, politics, and science—and achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... sufferers, and in the great friendly peace brought about between the old lords of the land, partly by their own manly feeling and the love that had somehow sprung up among their children, the greatest of all the Christian virtues took deep root, and flourished in a way that would have put the proverbial green bay tree ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... reason of its chief, who infused his own life and vigour into what was before a weak administration. Cavour was a born man of business; he hated disorder in everything—except, indeed, dress, in which his carelessness was proverbial. He had not the common belief that, muddle them how you may, there will always be a providence which looks after the affairs of the State and prevents the collapse that would attend a private commercial enterprise conducted on the same system. He took in hand the financial renewal of Piedmont ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the right time they came leisurely up, and gravely taking their proper place, marched on with their proverbial sagacity—waiting outside Westminster Hall, whilst the lord mayor swore to do his duty, as quietly as though they were at home—and afterward left the procession at Blackfriars Bridge, to go to their own quarters and eat their well-earned dinner. It is to be hoped that the lord mayor ordered something ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... trace them up the shelving bank; but not so easily along the road, though certain they continue that way. It is black as pitch beneath the shadowing trees. Withal, Woodley is not to be thus baffled. His skill as a tracker is proverbial among men of his calling; moreover, he is chagrined at their ill success so far; and, but for there being no time, the ex-jailer, its cause, would catch it. He does in an occasional curse, which might be accompanied by a cuff, did he ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... men both perished from the proverbial indiscretions of seamen, heightened by circumstances apparent; but had either of them been ashore under proper treatment, he would, in all ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... four legs with four other arms or tentacles. It had no head, just body and members and a row of eyes completely around it. The top end of the barrel-body was a diaphragm stretched as tight as a drum head, and that was all. It was pushing a little coppery cart and tore right past us like the proverbial bat out of Hell. It didn't even notice us, although I thought the eyes on my side shifted a little ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... natural, for my whole childhood was spent in an atmosphere of searching after it. Ever since I can remember the chief occupation and interest of mama was how diplomatically to get into the smartest set with dignity. It seemed as difficult as the proverbial camel and eye of a needle and the rich man getting into heaven, and in my younger days the three were all very much mixed up together in my mind. I think I should prefer London to Paris. Smart life in Paris seems to be so very much more immoral than in London, judging ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... the indigo crop has been already noticed, and is, indeed, as proverbial as that from the hop plant in England. In Bengal the crop is particularly subject to be destroyed by the annual inundation of the river, if it occurs earlier than usual. A storm of wind, accompanied by rain and hail, as completely ruins the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... an approving assent to this. "A widow's only concern should be to refrain from attracting notice," she said, as though quoting from a private book of proverbial philosophy soon ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of it," he replied in an undertone. "That run of '17' might happen—yes. But it is improbable. They let me win because I was a new player—new players always win at first. It is proverbial, but the man who is running this game has made it look like a platitude. To satisfy myself on that point I am going to play again—until I have lost my winnings and am just square with the game. When I reach the point that I am convinced ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds |
