"Spoilt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to herself; "for my part I can't understand anyone going into raptures over them. For one nice child there are twenty disagreeable ones. I have nothing to say against Babs, of course; but Judy, she is about the most spoilt creature I ever came across, and of course it is all Hilda's fault. I must speak to Mr. Merton, I really must, if this goes on. Hilda and Judy ought to be parted, but of course Hilda won't leave home unless, unless—ah, I wonder if there is any chance of that. Too good news to be ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... whether the hairs on your forehead be many or few, you know not, but do know well that it behoves an old man to be cheery in proportion to the propinquity of his exit, and go on your way rejoicing through this beautiful world, which not even the Radicals have quite spoilt yet. ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... "That's just the tiresome part of it. I've been for a little trip abroad, you see, and have been a bit spoilt. That was in a country down south. I took a nap under the beech-trees there. They are tall, slender trees, not crooked old fellows like you. And their tops are so dense that the sunbeams can't pierce through them at all. It was a real delight to ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... irresistible contagion in the mirth of her young cousin, but still she could not help feeling sad. It was not merely that she would have to part with Eric, "but that bright boy," thought Fanny, "what will become of him? I have heard strange things of schools; oh, if he should be spoilt and ruined, what misery it would be. Those baby lips, that pure young heart, a year may work sad change in their words and thoughts!" She sighed again, and her eyes glistened as she raised them upwards, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... courtship promotes conjugal felicity more than anything else whatever. A lady, asked why she didn't marry, since she had so many making love to her, replied: "Because being courted is too great a luxury to be spoilt ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... any way spoilt by adulation, Countess, and has been as amenable to my slightest wish as the humblest peasant child could be; but she certainly has a pretty little air of dignity. It was funny to see how she queened it among the French soldiers, who always called her Mademoiselle la Comtesse, and always ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... travel slowly home. This show of anger on the Captain's part, caused her to commence crying, as she knew that he could not resist so powerful an appeal to his sympathy. The result equalled her anticipations. The Captain soon lost all his irritation and began to console her, as if she were a spoilt child; finally, she induced him to go driving with them that afternoon. The Captain told me afterward, that Pattmore behaved with great propriety during the drive, and that they did not seem to be so much in love with each other as he had supposed. I smiled inwardly at the old sailor's simplicity; ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... see, by the papers of Galignani, that there is a new tragedy of great expectation, by Barry Cornwall. Of what I have read of his works Hiked the Dramatic Sketches, but thought his Sicilian Story and Marcian Colonna, in rhyme, quite spoilt, by I know not what affectation of Wordsworth, and Moore, and myself, all mixed up into a kind of chaos. I think him very likely to produce a good tragedy, if he keep to a natural style, and not play tricks to form harlequinades for an audience. As he (Barry Cornwall ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... breathe a word," she said, "everything will be spoilt. It has to burst on Georgie. Oh, and there's another mulberry-tree in your garden as well as the one in ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... temper of the cross cook was tried more and more by the little mice, which ran over all her nice pies and puddings, and spoilt them as fast as ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... might go pleasuring all day long; but I couldn't do it, and would have given a dozin bunnets trimmed to kill ef I could only have been back moilin' in my old kitchen with the children hangin' round me and Lisha a comin' in cheerful from his work as he used to 'fore I spoilt his home for him. How sing'lar it is folks never do know when they ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... good taste and skilful workmanship of the setting. The first necklace was of diamonds set as roses and crescents, some of them very large, and all of great brilliancy; the second of emeralds, a few of which were as large as acorns, but spoilt by being pierced; the third of pearls set whole; the fourth of hollow filigree beads in red, burned gold; the fifth of sapphires and diamonds; the sixth a number of finely worked chains of gold with a pendant of a gold filigree fish set with ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... business, of that grotesque revival of medievalism, the Tournament at Eglinton Castle in 1839. But the writer, conceding something to the requirements of art, ignores the fact that the splendid pageant was spoilt by rain. Two years' preparation and enormous expense were thrown away. A grand cavalcade, in which Prince Louis Napoleon rode as one of the knights, left Eglinton Castle on the 28th of August at two in the afternoon, with heralds, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... things else REBECCA STRYPE Could least endure a pipe. She rail'd upon the filthy herb tobacco, Protested that the noisome vapour Had spoilt the best chintz curtains and the paper And cost her many a pound in stucco: And then she quoted our King James, who saith "Tobacco is the Devil's breath." When wives will govern, husbands must obey; For many a day DICK mourn'd and miss'd his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the old lady in the window. "It is the family motto. The Trouts have had large families and good luck for generations; that is, till your grandfather's time. He had one only son. I married him. He was a good husband, but he had been a spoilt child. He had always been used to be waited upon, and he couldn't fash to look after the farm when it was his own. We had six children. They are all dead but you, who were the youngest. You were bound to a tailor. When the farm came into your hands, your wife died, and you have ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... I went to St. Cyr, but England, the home of my father, claimed me, and I was given a commission in the Artillery. That was two years ago. I volunteered for the Flying Corps, served in it at the outbreak of war, but was invalided after that confounded accident which spoilt my nerve. I fell two hundred feet into the sea, and passed thirty hours in the bitter water before a destroyer picked me up. Thirty hours, my friend. My nerve went, and I was besides crippled by rheumatism of the heart. Then I was for a few weeks liaison officer on the ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... intellectual emancipation was hindered by many obstacles; for, an ailing child, he was petted by his mother, and such germs of intelligence (verses at seven years old, and the like) as he betrayed were trumpeted as prodigies. He was spoilt so long before he was ripe that it is a marvel he ever ripened at all. Many years must pass before vanity could be replaced in him by manly ambition; a vein of silliness is traceable through his career almost to the end. He expatiated in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... time is joost right. A day sooner and the egsperiment would haf been spoilt; but now"—he laughed—"let the island sink, we do not care. We ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... man," agreed Foyle, not without a note of rueful admiration. "He'd got half-a-dozen of the best-known and richest peers in England to promise support, when we spoilt his game. No one would prosecute. He always had luck, had Goldenburg. He's been at the back of a score of big things, but we could never get legal proof against him. He was a cunning rascal—educated, plausible, reckless. Well, he's gone now, and he's given us as tough a nut to crack ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... opera, the drums coming in at proper intervals, the tenor, baritone, and bass all where they should be—except that the voices were all of the same calibre. A woman once sang from the back row with a very fine contralto voice spoilt by being made artificially nasal; I notice all the women affect that unpleasantness. At one time a boy of angelic beauty was the soloist; and at another a child of six or eight, doubtless an infant phenomenon being trained, was placed in the centre. The little fellow was desperately ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Mr. Linton, casting his long form into an armchair. "Of all the spoilt young cubs!—and that's all it is, I should say: clearly a case of spoiling. The boy isn't bad at heart, but he's never been checked in his life. Well, I'm told it's risky for a father to bring up his daughter unaided, but I'm positive the result is worse ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Commanders are of opinion that such training can be overdone. Nor is this view without foundation. If single combats are carried out in the regulation way on imperfectly broken horses, the horse is not only spoilt, but the rider also, and a clumsy rider will very soon make a good horse hard in the ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... to M. Geffroy, it may be seen that the members of the congress of Utrecht deliberated with d'Aubigny, and that they designated him the plenipotentiary of Madame des Ursins. However that may be, d'Aubigny did not obtain much; in fact, he spoilt everything by offering the Dutch greater advantages than had been accorded to the English. So the latter at least pretended, in order, no doubt, to have a pretext for wholly abandoning Madame des Ursins and for resuming their haughty attitude towards her, after ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... this, will you? What are these chaps up to? The ink has spoilt all but the picture and this bit of reading. I want to know what it means. Take ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... or more than, by force of circumstances. His brother John told him that his want of success in life was more owing to his being unlike other people than to any other cause. His isolating and aggressive pride engendered a tactlessness which often spoilt any chances of advancement that came his way. But he had dogged determination, which, to quote Mr. Jenkins, "was to carry him through the most critical period of his life, enable him to earn the approval of those in whose interests he worked, and eventually achieve fame and an unassailable ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... half petulantly, for he had been a "spoilt child," and might probably have been by that time a ruined young man, but for the mercy of his Creator, who had blessed him with an amiable disposition. He was one of those youths, in short, of whom people say that they can't be spoiled, though fond and ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... I found that Oo-koo-hoo had left camp before daylight; and half the afternoon passed before he returned. That evening he explained that during the previous night, the thought of the wolverine having haunted him and spoilt his rest, he had decided on a certain plan, risen before dawn, and started upon the trail. Now he was full of the subject, and without my asking, described what he had done. Securing a number of fish hooks—trout size—he had wired them together, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... unconsciously by our feathered guests, there were no fruits on which berry-eating birds could live; but now they are the only native trees or large bushes on the islands—I mean the only ones not directly planted by you mischief-making men, who have entirely spoilt ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... his way,' said Herbert, button-holing his own waistcoat; 'but he's spoilt by two bad traits. In the first place, he's so dreadfully conscious of the fact that he has risen from a lower position; and then, again, he's so engrossingly and pervadingly mathematical. X square seems to have seized upon him bodily, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... spoilt me," observed the blind lady. "Instead of letting me learn to grope my way about, she always insists on my taking her arm, so that I can step out without fear of falling over anything ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... have turned in somewhere.' Then she said: 'Well, Gretel, enjoy yourself, one fowl has been cut into, take another drink, and eat it up entirely; when it is eaten you will have some peace, why should God's good gifts be spoilt?' So she ran into the cellar again, took an enormous drink and ate up the one chicken in great glee. When one of the chickens was swallowed down, and still her master did not come, Gretel looked at the other and said: 'What one is, the other should be likewise, the two ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... do things, too. I can't understand it; and it's very odd in Mrs. Douglas to allow her to be so much neglected, for certainly Mary's constantly with herself; which, to be sure, shows that she is very much spoilt; for although our girls are as fond of us as I am sure any creatures can be, yet, at the same time, they are always very glad—which is ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... scampers up- stairs two steps at once, and runs down with a leap down the last four steps, were summarily stopped, as unladylike, and too noisy for Aunt Jane. Kate did get a private run and leap whenever she could, but never with a safe conscience; and that spoilt the pleasure, or made ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... later," Rendel said. "You must find your way back without me, there's a good fellow. By the way," he added, "I'm sorry to have spoilt your day; I'm afraid you've had no luncheon. But you'll be back in Schleppenheim in time to get some. Look here, would you mind saying to my wife that—that I've walked a little further than you cared to go, or something of that sort, and that I'll ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... me still!" The dull eyes of his spirit flashed with the sudden rejuvenation of his heavy body. "I never really believed you had ceased to care....you were capricious like all women...a little spoilt. I knew that if I had patience...Only a loving wife would do ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... lively spoilt darling. She married John Rokesmith (i.e., John Harmon).—C. Dickens, Our Mutual ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... up to her full height. There was something haughty in her demeanor, occasioned, perhaps, by the careless way in which he asked the question. She felt that he was treating her rather like a spoilt child, while she ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... assembled to see the stock and buy them. After visiting the paddocks, Bloomfield[4] gave a magnificent dinner to the company in a tent near the house; it was the finest feast I ever saw, but the badness of the weather spoilt the entertainment. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... natural with women who affected a serious purpose, had fewer chances, and Miss PHYLLIS MONKMAN spoilt hers by a bad trick of hunching her shoulders and waggling her arms as if she were out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... every girl who is growing up to womanhood that it might be brought home to her by some refined and ethically-minded member of her own sex how insufferable a person woman becomes when, like a spoilt child, she exploits the indulgence of man; when she proclaims that it is his duty to serve her and to share with her his power and possessions; when she makes an outcry when he refuses to part with what is his own; and when ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... nearly spoilt all by an exclamation, but I held myself back. I saw she was dreaming awake and was unconscious ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... I was taking a great responsibility on myself, and that if anything happened—for instance, if I died——" Vanderlyn again made a restless, almost a contemptuous movement—"I should have been the cause of your wasting the best years of your life; I should have broken and spoilt your career, and ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... through his nose in a half-lazy, half-joking voice (spoilt children speak so to friends of the house who bring them sweetmeats), and without waiting for an answer ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... Lines received from Mother's "spoilt Boy," as Father hath called Brother Bill, ever since he went a soldiering. Blurred and mis-spelt as they are, she will prize them. Trulie, we are none of us grate hands at the Pen; 'tis well I make this ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... course it will not be an easy matter to fix this "standard of taste." As regards moral conduct, we do not seek our models among savages, so with regard to taste, we must have recourse to those few whose taste has not been corrupted nor spoilt by pleasure, who have received good taste from nature, and have perfected it by education and by the practice of life. If after this has been done, there should yet arise disputes, it will be necessary to refer ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... spoilt Aldbro'; but now that Dunwich is crossed out from my visiting Book by the loss of that fine fellow, {290} whom this time of year especially reminds me of, I must return to Aldbro' now and then. Why can't you go ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... certainly cherish admiration for the doings of the "patriots." Many of us have to come in contact with some one or other belonging to this class and if he be known to favour anything against the great figures of the city-politics, his business is sure to be spoilt. ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... carry their spawn about with them, but deposit it in the subterranean passages inhabited by them in the form of thin, round, yellow plates. The spawn is consequently exceedingly difficult to procure, and unfortunately it becomes spoilt in a day when it is removed from its natural hatching place, whilst on the contrary the progress of development may be followed for weeks together in the eggs of a single Crab kept in confinement. The eggs of Squilla, like those removed from the body of the Crab, die because they are deprived ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... Edwin, plump head-waiter at The Cock, Grown sick of custom, spoilt of plenitude, Lacking the finer wit that saith, 'I wait, They come; and if I make them wait, they go,' Fell in a jaundiced humour petulant-green, Watched the dull clerk slow-rounding to his cheese, Flicked a full dozen flies that flecked the pane— All crystal-cheated of ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mine, and I thought, if I declared that mistrust on your part or a refusal would be a real offense to me, by this means almost to compel you to yield to my wish. The matter really deserves careful reflection on your part as to how you can make amends for having spoilt this day so bright for me, owing as much to my frame of mind as to the cheerful weather. When I said that you misunderstand me, your present judgment of me shows that I was quite right—not to speak of what you thought to yourself about ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Eden, that to which the memory of humanity reverts as to its dim golden age, and which ever expresses the bright dream of our youth, ere the rigor of misfortune or the dulness of experience has spoilt it. The dramatis personae are three individuals, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. There are the mysterious tree, with its wonderful fruit,—the beautiful, but inquisitive woman,—the thoughtful, but too compliant man,—and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... my eye for the fate of the unhappy Charlotte, I may have children of my own, said I, to whom this recital may be of use, and if to your own children, said Benevolence, why not to the many daughters of Misfortune who, deprived of natural friends, or spoilt by a mistaken education, are thrown on an unfeeling world without the least power to defend themselves from the snares not only of the other sex, but from the more dangerous arts of the profligate ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... day. Romney wanted but education and reading to make him a very fine painter: but his ideal was not high nor fixed. How touching is the close of his life! He married at nineteen, and, because Sir Joshua and others had said that marriage spoilt an artist, almost immediately left his wife in the North, and scarce saw her till the end of his life: when, old, nearly mad, and quite desolate, he went back to her, and she received him, and nursed him till he died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney's ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... habit of thinking for themselves. Life, we know too well, is not a Comedy, but something strangely mixed; nor is Comedy a vile mask. The corrupted importation from France was noxious; a noble entertainment spoilt to suit the wretched taste of a villanous age; and the later imitations of it, partly drained of its poison and made decorous, became tiresome, notwithstanding their fun, in the perpetual recurring of the same situations, owing to the absence ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ten o'clock the next morning when he rose, and he was greatly astonished to find a new suit in place of his own, which had been spoilt. 'This palace,' he said to himself, 'must surely belong to some good fairy, who has ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... more and more excited. He had suffered humiliation after humiliation. He was a mere lad, spoilt, adulated, pampered from his boyhood: the wine had got into his head, the intoxication of rage and hatred blinded his ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... that's the reason why my uniforms are so shabby. I spoilt them then, and had no time to order others. I did not like to say why they were spoilt." I saw a change in the countenances of all the three, and it gave me courage. Indeed, now that my feelings had found vent, I was no longer under ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... you stick Fanny into that last compliment for?' inquired Parsons, as they followed together; 'it quite spoilt the effect.' ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the other youngster, a little, white face, pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and distorted by evil passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing at the enchanted pane. "It's no good, sir," said the shopman, as I moved, with my natural helpfulness, doorward, and presently the spoilt child was carried ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... on, and ribbons got ready. One dress, Tanya's, which the English governess had undertaken, cost Darya Alexandrovna much loss of temper. The English governess in altering it had made the seams in the wrong place, had taken up the sleeves too much, and altogether spoilt the dress. It was so narrow on Tanya's shoulders that it was quite painful to look at her. But Marya Philimonovna had the happy thought of putting in gussets, and adding a little shoulder-cape. The dress was set right, but there was nearly a quarrel with the English governess. On the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and manners, and had then brought him to court. He differed from Carr in being naturally good-tempered, and of a courteous obliging disposition, which won the heart of every one.[396] Although no one doubted that he would be spoilt by a higher position, yet people thought that he could never become malicious like Somerset. Lord Pembroke and Archbishop Abbot both gave him a helping hand in his rise: the latter moved the Queen also, although she was not without scruples, to aid in it. Villiers ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... so beautiful. There was something unearthly about her, as if she had seen a vision and the blinding light of it still shone white upon her face. As he touched her, Hannaford felt a thrill as of new life go through him. By his own wild recklessness he had spoilt his career and put himself, so he believed, beyond the pale of any woman's love. He had thought that he had trained himself not to care; but in that instant, while Mary, dazed by her vision, almost hung ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... softer flash of teeth), was very anxious to have me presented to her (courteous intonation, but no teeth). He hoped I wouldn't mind if she treated me a little as an "interesting young man." His mother had never got over her seventeenth year, and the manner of the spoilt beauty of at least three counties at the back of the Carolinas. That again got overlaid by the sans-facon of a grande dame ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the experience of a sweet wife's companionship, was insupportable. There were no Europeans for miles around and there remained only the diversions of an occasional shikar. The tour of the previous autumn and winter months on which he had been accompanied by his girlish bride, had spoilt him for bachelor life; for though Joyce had disliked the inconveniences of camping, she had suffered them meekly, seeing that to have objected would have been both selfish and unkind. But the coming of the child had roused in her active opposition to all that might be harmful ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... this uneasiness of mind, nothing spoilt the full enjoyment of the spring days. All day the sun shone bright and strong from a blue sky, the warmth tempered by pleasant breezes from the sea or the mountains, and at night the stars stood out brilliantly in the great dome above. Used to ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... dresses would have come in for me so beautifully. I don't see why some fairies shouldn't have dark hair! And it was just as bad when we acted The Merchant of Venice. Miss Carter gave 'Portia' to Francie Hall, and made me take 'Jessica,' and Francie was a perfect stick, and spoilt the whole thing! Next time, I declare I'll bargain to wear a golden wig, and ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... spoilt by an over-indulgent mother, who stuffed him with sweetmeats till he was sick, and then thought him too delicate to study, so that at twelve years old, he was a pale, puffy boy, dull, fretful, and lazy. A friend persuaded ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... spear, of which the spear blade was Newman. It did forget many of the other forces that were fighting on its side. But the movement could boast, first and last, many men who had this eager dogmatic quality: Keble, who spoilt a poem in order to recognise a doctrine; Faber, who told the rich, almost with taunts, that God sent the poor as eagles to strip them; Froude, who with Newman announced his return in the arrogant motto of Achilles. But the greater part of all this ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... she was forced to gain her living as a governess. Think what she must have suffered, who never in her life had had a harsh or unkind word, and scarcely ever had a wish ungratified; but had been spoilt and petted at home, and courted and flattered abroad. Think what it must have been to go alone and friendless among strangers; to earn, by the irksome task of teaching, no more a year than she had been accustomed ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... carefully. When you see a thin blue fume rising from it, it is hot enough. That is the sign. If you do not look closely it may escape your notice, for it is only a thin fume you want, not a thick smoke. If we were to let the fat remain till it smoked it would be spoilt." ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... comfortably, have watched the various scenes pass before you. The great charm of these scenes is that the people really did do the things which we here see them doing, even down to the smallest gestures. But often the pleasure is spoilt by knowing that the actors were only making these gestures for the purpose of being photographed; also the scenes are sometimes disconnected and scrappy, and seldom indeed is it that they are represented in colour, and ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... say nothing of their numerous friends and allies; why, you would be cut up to minced meat amongst them all; and nine-tenths of the reviews and newspapers would be ringing their changes of abuse upon your name, as one of the most blundering blockheads that ever spoilt paper." ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... of Jesus Christ is the crowning revelation of man, as well as of God. There, side by side with humanity marred and wrecked and spoilt by sin, which is selfishness, we see man as God made him, as God meant him to be, clothed with the Divine beauty and ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... that he never meant to go to a country where people spoke a language that sounded like cracking walnuts; that he hated steamers; had no fancy for tumble-down castles; that it was so common to travel; there was more distinction in staying at home; that the field of Waterloo had been spoilt, and was not worth seeing; his ideas of glaciers would be ruined by the reality; and he did not care to see Cologne Cathedral ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... artist of the great victory, fell. But we have no reason to believe that his loss retarded the retrograding movement in any degree. Men who create as Harold created have not their creations spoilt by death. ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... told is quite good one, but is rather spoilt by the author's insistence on showing how clever he is by calling the animals and plants that appear in the story, by ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... been a lover of the picturesque. In secret he prided himself on possessing the artistic faculty, and yet, except in the nursery, he had never drawn a line, or later on spoilt canvas and daubed himself in oils under the idea that he was an embryo Millais or Turner. But nevertheless he had the seeing eye, and could find beauty where more prosaic people could only see barrenness: a stubble ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... cleanses an ulcer, closes a wound, heals a lung, strengthens or makes supple an arm or leg, or even sets bones, but always as it were by accident, without reason, method or object, in a deceitful, illogical and preposterous fashion. One would set it down as a spoilt child that has been allowed to lay hands on the most tremendous secrets of heaven and earth; it has no suspicion of their power, jumbles them all up together and turns them into paltry, inoffensive toys. It knows everything, perhaps, but is ignorant ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... handed him my gun, and he squatted down and took a rest on his knee and fired. At the crack of the gun one of the elks fell to his knees, but got up and ran for all that was in him, and that was the last we saw of the elk. I told Jim he had spoilt the fun, and we had got no meat out of it. He grinned and said, "Oh durn it that old elk was too old ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... by Walt Whitman, and in a few of his finest lyrics, such as Out of the Cradle endlessly rocking, one gets the perfection of structure and form. But he spoilt his vehicle by a careless diffuseness, by a violent categorical tendency, and by other faults which may be called faults of breeding rather than faults of art—a ghastly volubility, an indiscretion, a lust for description rather than suggestion; and thus he has numbered ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... creature of habit he was! He was still in the choir of Morley Chapel—not very regular. He belonged just because he had a tenor voice, and enjoyed singing. Indeed his solos were only spoilt to local fame because when he sang he handled his aitches ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... glimpse of a woman's nature in the spoilt child, though for an instant disposed to resent it as seeming to involve the enforced infliction of himself upon her, Edwin Drood stands watching her as she childishly cries and sobs, with both hands to the handkerchief at her eyes, and then—she becoming more composed, and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... very seldom angry with her spoilt child, but now she was thoroughly roused, and said in low distinct tones, "Remember, Julia, that you speak of my brother's daughter. While Ruth is here she will be treated as your sister. You little know what you owe to your uncle, and if I ever hear you speak in that contemptuous way of any ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... garden, and he persuaded his neighbours to do the same. He taught them daily lessons about the value of fresh air and clean water: no details were too dull and wearisome in the cause. To many people his novels, like those of Dickens and Charles Reade, are spoilt by the advocacy of social reforms. The novel with a purpose was characteristic of the early Victorian Age, and both in Alton Locke and in Two Years Ago he makes little disguise of the zeal with which he preaches sanitary reform. Of the more attractive sciences, which he pursued with equal intensity, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... reflected on the service a dead sentiment can do to society; how love may become both social and useful? This will serve to explain why, in spite of his constant winning at play (he never left a salon without carrying off with him about six francs), the old chevalier remained the spoilt darling of the town. His losses—which, by the bye, he always proclaimed, were ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... the stretching and relaxing of the vocal ligaments is the moving up and down of the larynx. Many believe that the larynx must be kept as motionless as possible and in a low position. The large number of voices which have been spoilt by this unnatural fixed position of the voice-box are a manifest proof of the evil of this way of operating, against which every singer must ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... all the better for you," said Mr. Langford; "if we had had you here, depend upon it, we should have spoilt you. We have so few granddaughters that we cannot help making too much of them. There is that little Busy Bee—by the by, what is her plan this evening, or are not you ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... easily with him, but Clare was silent and seemed absent-minded. The young man looked at her from time to time with curiosity, for he was not used to being treated with such perfect indifference as she showed to him. He was not spoilt, as the phrase goes, but he had always been accustomed to a certain amount of attention, when he met new people, and, without being in the least annoyed, he thought it strange that this particular young lady should seem not even to ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... said, "that the baby did not make its appearance after Michaelmas instead of before. Don't you see yourself what a pity it is, and how everything has been spoilt?" ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... house. She had a fancy that she could only breathe freely in a large room; she therefore constructed out of the body of the house an enormous bedroom for herself. It was square, with a dressing-room at each angle. Her husband, upon his return home, found his house completely spoilt, as this room occupied the main part of the first floor. However, as the mischief was done, he bore it with the greatest philosophy, venting his feelings with his usual exclamation on such occasions—'Oh, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... clambering over the rough rocks, and dabbling in the salt water, where he would watch the beautiful green anemones, that had so many fingers but no hands, and which he never touched, because, if he did, they spoilt themselves directly, packing their fingers up very quickly, so that they went into nowhere: or the prawns, that he always thought were the spirits of the other fish, for they looked as if they were made of nothing, and they lay so still under ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... is another spoilt child of Jargon, especially in Committee's Rules—'Co-opted members may be eligible as such; such members to continue to serve for ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... take it all in all, that was about the most florid winter I ever put in, an' it purt' nigh spoilt me for hard work. I did the cookin', the innocents did the chores, an' we got along as bully as a fat bear for a while, livin' in the hotel. The' was a hundred rooms, but we didn't use 'em all. Locals, he wrote most of the time, when he wasn't lookin' at the ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... overthrow the old monarchies and conquer Europe.[9] Neither did the great commander himself overstate the peculiarity of his temperament, when he confessed that his instincts had ever prompted him that his will must prevail, and that what pleased him must of necessity belong to him. Most spoilt children harbour the same illusion, for a brief space. But all the buffetings of fortune failed to drive it from the young Buonaparte; and when despair as to his future might have impaired the vigour of his domineering instincts, his ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... somehow, this candy tasted particularly nice, bought out of grateful Ben's solitary dime. The little girls shared their goodies with their favorite mates, but said nothing about the new arrangement, fearing it would be spoilt if generally known. They told their mother, however, and she gave them leave to lend their books and encourage Ben to love learning all they could. She also proposed that they should drop patch-work and help her make some blue shirts for Ben. Mrs. Barton had given ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... would be in the streets of Pekin. It is, however, very accessible. The roads are certainly far from good, and anything in the shape of a walking tour is out of the question, for the strongest pedestrian would have all his pleasure spoilt by the hard-going of the long, straight causeway. The ideal way to see the Netherlands and study the life of the people is to travel on the canals; but these are not so numerous here as in other parts of the country, and, besides, it is not very easy to arrange ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... you. I am glad I have only got to sleep here the one night. I had not eaten my omelette before Aunt Mary began about my hair. She said of course it was very nice curling like that, but it was a pity I did not wear a net over it all to keep it more tidy. She was sure you spoilt me, even though we are rich, letting me have such smart clothes. She had heard from Nazeby, that I had had on a fresh frock every day. I don't know who could have written to her. She has got to look much older in the two years we have been abroad ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... is boasted by many men of science; but in this matter their defect arises, not from ignorance of the other world, but from ignorance of this world." "The moment any matter has passed through the human mind it is finally and for ever spoilt for all purposes of science. It has become a thing incurably mysterious and infinite; this ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... Spoilt she was on all hands.... But though, from these circumstances, the city-beauty had become as wilful, as capricious, and as affected, as unlimited indulgence seldom fails to render those to whom it is extended; and although she exhibited upon many occasions that affectation of ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... Miss Salisbury said," cried Leslie, turning back. "You see, I saw her after school—went back for my history—and I was to tell you that, Polly; only Sarah spoilt it all." ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... blue-black hair wound around her head. She looked so sweet that Jims' heart beat. Then she lifted her head and turned her face and saw him. Jims felt something of a shock. She was not pretty after all. One side of her face was marked by a dreadful red scar. It quite spoilt her good looks, which Jims thought a great pity; but nothing could spoil the sweetness of her face or the loveliness of her peculiar soft, grey-blue eyes. Jims couldn't remember his mother and had no idea what she looked like, but the thought came into his head that he would have ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and horror that had found me out in the darkness and overcome. I cried in my heart for help, as a lost child cries, to God. I seem to remember a rush of impassioned prayer, not only for myself, not chiefly for myself, but for all those smashed and soiled and spoilt and battered residues of men whose memories tormented me. I prayed to God that they had not lived in vain, that particularly those poor Kaffir scouts might not have lived in vain. "They are like children," I said. "It was a murder of children.... ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... to Lunnun town; The king and queen they gain'd a crown; Dolly spoilt her bran-new gown, To her mortification. I'll drink our king and queen wi' glee, In home-brewed ale, and so will she; But Doll and I ne'er want ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... remonstrated with him with much tact, begging him to try to make himself more and more capable in the service of his king by cultivating the talents with which he was endowed, and ridding himself of the faults which spoilt his conduct. 'I do not doubt,' he concludes, 'that you will be all the more grateful to me for this mark of my benevolence towards you, when you reflect how few kings have ever shown their goodwill ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... blame him, poor boy. My only wonder is, that any of them ever get through this place without being thoroughly spoilt. From Vice-Chancellor down to scout's boy, the whole of Oxford seems to be in league to turn their boys heads, even if they come up with them set on straight, which toadying servants at home take care shall never happen if they can hinder it. The only ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... had much to say about how dearly his master and his mistress loved each other, and what a pity 'twas that the lady has lately fallen out of her mind by reason of illness. 'Twas the one thing that spoilt the life of Mr. Armitage, who fairly dotes on his sweet lady. Lud, yes! And one of her worst delusions is that he is not really her husband and that he wishes to harm her. Oh, they have contrived well their precious story to avoid ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... elephant.[17] He spent all the ivory in buying return presents of gunpowder, guns, soap, brandy, gin, &c., and they have stowed it all in this Tembe. This morning they have taken everything out to see if anything is spoilt. They have hundreds ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone |
