"Can't" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... King, and said, "O King, I can't get into my hole, and the Carpenter will not pare down my ribs; will you ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... ladies especially a sort of frivolity was conspicuous, and it could not be said to be a gradual growth. Certain very free-and-easy notions seemed to be in the air. There was a sort of dissipated gaiety and levity, and I can't say it was always quite pleasant. A lax way of thinking was the fashion. Afterwards when it was all over, people blamed Yulia Mihailovna, her circle, her attitude. But it can hardly have been altogether due to Yulia ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... there fond of her? nurse her well...? Fond as a dog!—good! Don't know—can't tell for certain! Afraid it's the spine, must have another opinion! What a plucky girl! Tell Mr. Ford to have the best man he can get in Torquay—there's C—-. I'll be round the first thing in the morning. Keep her dead quiet. I've left a sleeping ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... must ask your father if you can't spend the winter in Boston with me. I'm sure there'll be another course of Parlor Philosophy next winter. But how dreadful that we must stop talking about it now to dress for dinner! You are going to have company, you said; what ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... had rung you. (It is then that I feel most that I should like to wring you.) When I reply, "But you rang me," you revert to your prevailing regretful melancholy and say, "Sorry you were troubled," and before I can go deeply into the question and discover how these things occur you ring off. Can't you make an effort during 1921 not to do this? Let it be a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... all of the dead, I was started by the sound of my master's voice from under the great coats that had been thrown all at top, and I went close up, no one noticing. "Thady," says he, "I've had enough of this; I'm smothering, and can't hear a word of all they're saying of the deceased." "God bless you, and lie still and quiet," says I, "a bit longer, for my shister's afraid of ghosts, and would die on the spot with fright, was she to see you come to life all on a sudden this ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... right word, which seemed to be always at his command. If interrupted by questions, as he constantly was, his answers could not have been amended had he written them. His voice was not strong, and there were frequent calls from the far end to 'speak up, speak up; we can't hear you.' He did not raise his pitch a note. They might as well have tried to bully an automaton. He was doing his best, and he could do no more. Then, when, instead of the usual adulations, instead of declamatory appeals to the passions of a large and a mixed assembly, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... from that Mr. Chrysostom—Cyril, he wants me to call him, but I can't quite make up my mouth to it—who speaks English, and says he has been in England. He was telling me about it, one day when we were drying the dishes at the refectory together. He says they used to have wars and trusts and trades-unions ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... "Sorry—can't do it, sir—more than my place is worth. Besides, how do I know that you put in that letter? It may be a jewel letter from one ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... "They can't keep this thing up forever," said the officer. "Perhaps the smoke will clear off after a while, and then we will have ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... then,' returned her mistress. 'Let him look to his kingdom. Why should I give him my husband to do it for him and be disowned therein? I thank heaven I can do without a king, but I can't do without my Ned, and there he lies in prison for him who cons him no thanks! Not that I would overmuch heed the prison if the king would but share the blame with him; but for the king to deny him—to say that he did all of his ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... good-looking, and tall for a Siamese. He talked English perfectly and showed the greatest interest in everything he had seen. When he left Paris a few days later he bought three hundred dozen pairs of silk stockings for his three hundred wives. Quite a sum for the royal budget! One can't imagine bigamy going much further than that, can one? And he is ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... do without it?' he would say. 'Go home and settle that question between you, and if you find you can't, come and tell me, and I'll let you have the beast as cheap as you ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... horrible lonely eerie feeling comes over me; the solitude is so dreary, and the silence so intense, only broken occasionally by the wild, melancholy cry of the weka. However, I am very rarely tried in this way, and when I am it can't be helped, if ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... then!" said Sextus. "Cornificia, can't Marcia make a Christian of him; Christians pretend to oppose all the infamies he practises. It would be a merry joke to have a Christian emperor, who died because his soul was sick of him! It would be a choice jest—he ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... under close confinement," he ordered Lance's guards. "Allow no visitors of any kind." The colonel's tone was harsh and worried. "I've got to buck this matter to HQ. We can't have it blow up right now, ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... of despotism is that! Can't a friend get drunk, or game, or swagger? may he not depart from the highway, and sidle into an alley, without souring his friend's temper and making him stingy? I don't understand it at all. I'm glad, at least, to find you are of another ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Moreton and Exeter on the one side and by Dartmeet to Ashburton and the coast towns on the other. He must have gone off to the moor by one of those ways, I judge; and if he didn't, then he turned in his tracks and got either to Plymouth, or away to the north. We can't fail to pick up his line pretty quickly. He's a ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... observed, turning to Harry and me. "I believe if you had left the men alone they would have got well of themselves. I never have had a surgeon on board my ship, and never intend to have one. Nature is the best surgeon, and if she can't cure a ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... not know that those books are and have been called the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? And who has, in all the past centuries, produced evidence showing that those are the wrong names. No one. Insane men might say such a thing. Infidels don't like to say that; they just say you can't prove your religion, nor show that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote those books. Will any sensible man affirm that they are the wrong names? How do we judge and believe respecting the authorship of other ancient books? Why do we believe that Caesar wrote the Commentaries ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... herself, they call her slow; if she is ambitious, and gets her work done early, and they see her sitting down in working-hours, they conclude that she is not earning her wages, and hunt up some extra job for her. No matter if you can't find anything undone, if she is found sitting about she must ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... come to me every day for half-an-hour at least, and I will give you a lesson on my piano. But you can't learn by that. And my aunt could never bear to hear you practising. So I'll tell you what you must do. I have a small piano in my own room. Do you know there is a door from your house ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... educated to be a man's intellectual companion. No Eastern man ever thought of a companion in a wife. But stopping thoughtfully for a moment, and seizing one of our idioms in his hesitating English, he said, "Yet I can't see for the life of me why it would not be better that ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... off at the front door, then I turned to the 'Boots,' and said in his ear, 'Look here, I'm going out to see if I can't find out who the fellow was who tackled my friend. If I want to be let in before daybreak I'll come and tap on your window in ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... here!" declared a hysterical feminine voice. "Oh, can't you stop the car and go down and get him? He pushed me in, and I thought he was right behind me. Aren't ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... especially with snow. 4. If there's any chance of refreezing, don't thaw out the affected areas. If they're already thawed out, wrap them up so they don't refreeze. 5. Get emergency medical help if numbness remains during warming. If you can't get help immediately, warm severely frostbitten hands or ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... hit it by nightfall—But we can't be that far away! I'll stay out and try tomorrow." That was Hobart. And since he was captain what he said was probably what they would do. Raf shied away from the thought of spending the night in this haunted land. Though, ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... put on an old dirty shirt, the only one I could find. Aunt Sophia gave me no end of a lecture this morning. She says I am to wear my new blouse to-night or she'll know the reason why. Of course, I can't wear it." ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... trail but Gladwyne's I'm interested in, and I can't say that I've succeeded in following that. I merely pushed on, until I struck this canon and as I couldn't get across, I ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... too, Miles, and at one time fancied it would be a prettyish sort of an idee; but it won't stand logarithms, at all. You may build a room that shall have its cabin look, but you can't build one that'll have a cabin natur' You may get carlins, and transoms, and lockers and bulkheads all right; but where are you to get your motion? What's a cabin without motion? It would soon be like the sea in the calm latitudes, offensive to the senses. No! none of your bloody motionless ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... terrific, we nearly jumped out of our skins, thinking it was the din of war, and not of a football game that we heard. But, in spite of all their wild efforts, neither side was scored, and we all laughed and said, "Oh, well now the pot can't ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... know anyone in Florida I would want to take a chance on for a long trip. I only know two fellows I would like to have along, and we can't get them. One is Walter Hazard, the Ohio boy who chummed with us down here for so long. The other is that little Bahama darky, Chris, whom Walter insisted on taking back north with him and putting in a school. There wasn't a yellow streak in either one, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... had a child, it might have been different. I might have liked to go on living for his sake. But Humanity, somehow—Oh! Oliver! I can't—I can't. ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... bull's-eye the first shot, Tom. That is just what I had in mind. Please don't try to throw cold water on my hopes by saying it can't be done." ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... an inquisitive neighbor. "And for my part, Miss Prouty," he added, nodding and winking at his questioner, "I'd like to see it fixed so she'd alwus stay; and if the Doctor doos think he can't do no better'n to have her bimeby, when the time comes, who's a right to say a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... must shoot a little straighter than you did at target practice this morning. Because I can't run very fast," she ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... be was past me, as well as how she came to be at La Chance. I would have been scared green lest she was the wife of some man at the mine, only she had no wedding ring on the slim left hand that had beckoned me to the fire. Yet, "She can't just be here alone, either, and I'm blessed if I see who she can have come with," I thought blankly. And I opened my room door straight ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... children. My little brother died. My mother was a seamstress in a little town out West—an awful hole it was. I was a tiny little girl when they took me to my mother's funeral. I remember that, but I can't remember her. That was my first death. And now this! I've lost a mother and father twice. That hasn't happened to many people. So you must forgive me for being so crazy. So many of my loved are dead. It's frightful. We lose so many as we grow up. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... a goncert—maybe fife from dat thousand lofes de moosic—let dose fife gome to me—and I play dem all day for noding!" or again, more iconoclastically still,—when told of golden harvests to be reaped, "And for vat den? I can't play on more dan von fioleen at a time—is it? I got a good one now. And if I drink more beer dan now, I might make myself seeck!" This with a prodigiously sly ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... tell you it was a great help and comfort to us that they did, for I don't know what would have become of us out here, away from our old friends, where the ways of living are so different from what we have been used to. Whether it will always be so or not, of course I can't say—time alone will show. ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... said Bartley. "That's what I want. Tell all there is to tell, and I can boil it down afterward. A man can't make a greater mistake with a reporter than to hold back anything out of modesty. It may be the very thing we want to know. What we want is the whole truth; and more; we've got so much modesty of our own that we can temper ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... with you, I've made a mess of it; but I can't help that," resumed Ida. "Why does she come ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... little pot of blue. How ugly it must be! How things lead on one to another! Once one's hair is powdered, one must have a little pearl powder on one's face in order not to look as yellow as an orange; and one's cheeks once whitened, one can't—you are tickling me with your brush—one can't remain like a miller, so a touch of rouge is inevitable. And then—see how wicked it is—if, after all that, one does not enlarge the eyes a bit, they look as if they had been bored ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... moment; only I can't give you the curve really described by the Projectile as it moves between the Earth and the Moon; this is to be obtained by allowing for their combined movement around the Sun. I will consider the Earth and the Sun to be motionless, that being ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... merits of the little dears. One baby differs from another in glory, I suppose; but I think on such days that they are all lovely, taken in the mass, and all in sweet harmony with the delicious atmosphere, the tender green, and the other flowers of spring. A baby can't do better than to spend its spring days in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the greasers' work? Here I am," said Marcassin, surnamed Petrolus. "I'm the lamp-man. Before that I was a greaser. Is that any better? Can't say. It's here that that goes on, look—there. My place you'll find at night by letting ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... weight off my mind, anyway," he remarked at length. "For I have a staggering piece of news for you which I hardly dare to impart. Oh, it's no good looking at your watch. It's hopelessly late, nearly six o'clock, and in any case I can't get you home ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... frantically with both arms and legs, and swears at the wind, the sleet, the darkness; the man who curses the sea while others work. The man who is the last out and the first in when all hands are called. The man who can't do most things and won't do the rest. The pet of philanthropists and self-seeking landlubbers. The sympathetic and deserving creature that knows all about his rights, but knows nothing of courage, of endurance, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... name you're winning, And, snug as Jonas in the Whale, You may loll back and dream a tale. 35 Move, or be moved—there's no protection, Our Mother Earth has ta'en the infection— (That rogue Copernicus, 'tis said First put the whirring in her head,) A planet She, and can't endure 40 T'exist without her annual Tour: The name were else a mere misnomer, Since Planet is but Greek for Roamer. The atmosphere, too, can do no less Than ventilate her emptiness, 45 Bilks ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a mighty piece of luck (84) for you—to be so happily compounded, of such flesh and blood. You alone can't injure those who sleep beside you. You have every right, it seems, to boast of your own flesh, ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... you value ease more than money or prosperity, don't come. . . . Hands are too few for the work, houses for the inhabitants, and days for the day's work to be done. . . . Next if you can't stand seeing your old New England ideas, ways of doing, and living and in fact, all of the good old Yankee fashions knocked out of shape and altered, or thrown by as unsuited to the climate, don't be caught out here. But if you can bear grief with a ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... up the walk?" said Aunt Barbara, rising and turning toward her placid younger sister in sudden excitement. "It can't be—why, yes, it is Betty, after all!" and she ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... he is German, have you?" demanded Jackson. "I was brought up among them to some extent. One idea is all a true German's head will hold at one time. That's the truth. And if he gets an idea in his head, you can't get it out. ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... with a sigh, "and I have but a dollar put by toward the twelve. I shall have to send you round to see Mr. Bond, child, and it's me that's ashamed to do that after all he's done for us; but it can't be helped! It's unfortunate we've been the last month, and shure he'll not be blaming the Providence as brought ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... "I can't fancy you thinking of any one so frivolous as myself," she laughed. "But you are not going, surely? We haven't even ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... know," she said. "I can't tell." Then, seeing a mournful look on the round, chubby face, she gave a little ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... They can't find any blankets. I run over to the Hotel Cecil for my thick, warm travelling-rug to wrap round the knees of the wounded, shivering in ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... what I've done to be so unfortunate. I've not been flash at all, and I never went to cafes at night, or to Sally's or Kate's, as so many girls do, and he can't say I ever took notice of anybody else. When I love anybody I think of him last thing at night and first thing in the morning, and now to be left alone—I'm sure I shall never live ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Burroughs. "'Tis a pity that her Grace up to Whitehall can't make up her mind one way or t'other about this here Spanish business; whether she'll be friends wi' Philip, or will fight mun. For all this here shilly-shallyin', first one way and then t'other, be terrible upsettin' to folks like we. But there, what be I grumblin' ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... I had even stronger reasons than these for silence. For several months I was disabled by the gout from holding a pen; and you must know, Madam, that one can't write when one cannot write. Then, how write to la Fianc'ee du Roi de Garbe? You had been in the tent of the Cham of Tartary, and in the harem of the Captain Pacha, and, during your navigation of the AEgean, were possibly ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... "No, you don't! The man who already has four children when he is only twenty-seven can't claim to be reasonable. And twins too—your Blaise and your Denis to begin with! And then your boy Ambroise and your little girl Rose. Without counting the other little girl that you lost at her birth. Including ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... suited to you, I suppose," said Rosalind, "as far as he can. But these things can't always be put so that just anyone can grasp them. They're too complicated. You should read it up beforehand, and try if you ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... a pipe, Wegg,' he said, filling his own, 'but you can't do both together. Oh! and another thing I forgot to name! When you come in here of an evening, and look round you, and notice anything on a shelf that happens to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Asop, are you? Doctor, who was Asop? All I can remember is that he wrote fables. Wasn't he a Phrygian? I can't remember." ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... discourage him. That's the only evidence I've got on my side. He says he fired to disarm the man, and that he saw him shift his gun to his left hand. It was the shot that the man fired when he held his gun in his left that broke the colonel's arm. Now, everybody knows I can't hit a barn with my left. And as for having any wounds concealed about my person"—Ranson turned his hands like a conjurer to show the front and back—"they can search me. So, if the paymaster will only stick to that story—that he hit the man—it ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... dis old cypress,—nor de fust time for Gabr'l neider. He runaway afore,— dat war when he libbed with Mass' Hicks, 'fore ole mass' bought him. He nebber had 'casion to run away from old Mass 'Sancon. He good to de brack folks, and so war Mass Antoine—he good too, but now de poor nigga can't stan no longer; de new oberseer, he flog hard,—he flog till do blood come,—he use de cobbin board, an dat pump, an de red cowhide, an de wagon whip,—ebberything he ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... love me, Ha! ha!—you love me more than all the rest. You can't deny it! You can't deny it! ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... he, as he lay on the grass; "this is out of all calculation. But it was entirely owing to the saddle. You can't but acknowledge, that if I had kept my seat, the beautiful lady would have been mine. But thus it is when Fortune ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... his eyes seeming to start out of his head. "You can't go. A man can't breathe in there. I'll try again, d'reckly, gentlemen, but—but! oh, the poor, brave, ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... shoulders. "Oh, people with these old, ready-made opinions usually go to church. But you can't evade me like that." She tapped the edge of his seat with the toe of her gold slipper. "You sat there all evening, glaring at me as if you could eat me alive. Now I give you a chance to state your objections, and you merely criticize ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... intentions makes it very hard for a student who loves the individual bird to watch his nest. One can't endure to give pain to the gentle and winsome creature. The mournful, despairing cry of both parents, "ke-o-ik! ke-o-ik! ke-o-ik!" constantly repeated, makes me, at least, feel like a robber and a murderer, and no number of "facts" to be gained will compensate me ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... town which possessed the subtle charm of this in which he sat. His wife, Winifred, was always trying to reproduce within their walls the indefinable quality which belonged to everything Ellen touched, and always saying in despair, "It's no use—Ellen is Ellen, and other people can't ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... had expected to pay you out of the turkey money, and I can't get that before Christmas. I hadn't an idea you could finish before then. And, oh, Johnny!" she added, sadly, "I thought it would be all your own work. What do I care for a quilt made by Tom, Dick, and Harry? I consented to spend so much money ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... you for the patient smile When your heart was fit to break, When the hunger pain was gnawin' there, And you hid it, for my sake! I bless you for the pleasant word, When your heart was sad and sore— O, I'm thankful you are gone, Mary, Where grief can't reach you more! ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... got scratched in the foot with a stray bullet, just as we went into the thicket there at the fort, and I can't walk. I am a little faint and ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... he, answering her look as if she had spoken. "Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess, my dear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of her, I know it's impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to her. No, not that, I don't, I can't..." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... said the old man, surveying the coffee and eggs with eyes of eager desire. "It's nice; but we can't afford to live ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... wishing to-day," the girl went on, raising her voice, "that I hadn't got myself engaged. It happened because of a misunderstanding, and I did it on the impulse of the moment; all the same, it can't be helped. And I was pretty jolly before I met Henry, and—I don't know—I may be pretty jolly again. If I go right out of his life now—why, I shall only think, I ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... say, "a man can't do more than a thousand things at once. A man can't talk a steady stream and do himself justice, and settle the heftiest kind of questions, and say the kind of things these ladies ought to have said to 'em, and then measure out molasses and weigh coffee and slash off ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of liquidating my account. The committee required the assistance of a first-rate engineer, and I flatter myself they could hardly have made a more unexceptionable selection. But what's the use of looking sulky about it? You can't help yourself; and, after all, what's the amount of your loss? A parcel of pound-notes that would have lain rotting in the bank had you not put them into circulation! Cheer up, Fred, you've made ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... the head of the mainmast an hour longer, we might have got an offing, and fetched to windward of the shoals; but as it is, sir, mortal man can't drive a craft to windward—she sets bodily in to land, and will be in the breakers in less than an hour, unless God wills that the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... told her that it wouldn't matter a bit. It hurts my pride a little now, but that ain't her lookout. Folks say she's odd and peculiar, and that may be so, too, but she was that way all along, and it's a waste of time to criticise anybody for what they can't help." ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... ... I really can't imagine," Dr. McAllen had just finished bumbling, his round face a study of controlled dismay on the other side of the desk, "whatever could have brought you to these ... these ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... single hour; and no more is wanted to plunge into love over head and ears; no more is wanted to make a first love with—and a woman's first love lasts FOR EVER (a man's twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth is perhaps the best): you can't kill it, do what you will; it takes root, and lives and even grows, never mind what the soil may be in which it is planted, or the bitter weather it must bear—often as one has seen a ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... coast is clear. I noticed this very particularly. The hair of the 'fonkra' is comparatively much longer than the bhutar's, and the colour is a great deal darker. Could Mr. Sterndale kindly let me know the Latin name for the 'bhutar'? I am sure it can't be Cervulus aureus (kakur, or barking deer), because the colour given of this deer is a beautiful bright glossy red or chesnut, while, as I have mentioned above, the colour of the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... "We can't allow this," said the fun-loving Rover to his younger brother. "The next thing you know Aleck will be ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... "Can't do it," he exclaimed, testily, crumpling up the letter in his hand. "Haven't a single frigate at my disposal; not even a corvette nor a despatch-boat—nothing, in fact, but my own barge. Sheer impossibility; so there's an end of it. Why, in the name of all that's ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... "Faith, I can't say," replied Jack; "perhaps they can speak if they liked—probably they have an idiom of their own. You, that know all languages, and a great many more besides, ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... It can't be moths making such a noise on the second shelf. It is Tom, who calls out to us, from his room, to come, and help ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... Koko is a regular dolt; I can't bear him. A hare-brained fellow, a regular gad-about! Without any kind of occupation, eternally loafing around! ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... it is. I assure you you are quite wrong. It was a mere matter of four or five tumblers. Very odd this! Why—I can't ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... a vice. And then it is wholesome, and vices always do something to one—make one's nose red, or bring out wrinkles, or spots, or some horror. Two cups of Bovril, Henderson," she added to the butler, in a parenthesis. "Take off your cloak, Emily, and lie down on this sofa. What a pity we can't have a fire. That is the chief charm of the English summer. It nearly always necessitates fires. But ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... a question. "Yes, sir; two of 'em we had in the house. One was for putting up the chimes; and the other—well, I can't just remember what the other was. The beadle, old Crow, comes in, sir, this afternoon. 'Where be the master?' says he. 'Gone over to t'other side of Church Dykely,' says I. 'Well,' says he, upon that, 'you be ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... well, in fact, that you have suffered for it. Can't we start at once?" She was debating within herself whether it would be quite good form to shake hands with the reclining hero. In the glare of the broad daylight he and his followers looked more ragged and ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... I says. Dean had to give in that he didn't know. 'Might have to let their wives support 'em,' he says, pompous as ever. 'That would be a calamity, wouldn't it, Lute?' That wasn't no answer, of course. But you can't expect sense of a Democrat. I left him fumin' and come away. I've thought of a lot more questions to ask him since and I was hopin' I could get at him this mornin'. But no! Dorindy's sot on havin' this yard raked, so I s'pose ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... this inn to-night, but none for poor Neal, who's down in some cellar, nor the sentry they post over him, nor for you, Maurice, nor for James. Maybe after all Neal won't be hanged in the morning. That's all I have to say to you, my son. A man in my position can't say more or do ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... pirates and all, sir; and I aint a bit frightened of a parson. No; I love a parson, sir. And I'll tell you for why, sir. He's got a good telescope, and he gits to the masthead, and he looks out. And he sings out, 'Land ahead!' or 'Breakers ahead!' and gives directions accordin'. Only I can't always make out what he says. But when he shuts up his spyglass, and comes down the riggin', and talks to us like one man to another, then I don't know what I should do without the parson. Good evenin' to you, ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... It's mine!" asserted the other, edging away along the curbstone. "I saw it first. You can't have it." ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... repeated Aurelia. "Now I have you nothing will be dreadful. But where am I? I thought once I was in a boat with you and Eugene, and some one else. Was it a dream? I can't remember anything since that terrible old woman made me drink the coffee. You have not ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "What's done can't be undone," they told her. "You'd best let a two-three of us stay the night and coax 'ee from frettin'. It's bad for the system, and you so ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the robin is robin, I suspect," said mother, laughing. "You can do many things that the robin can't, ...
— Dew Drops - Volume 37, No. 18, May 3, 1914 • Various
... Caleb; "come this way, will you, and give my wife your hand? She is a little frightened, and can't go on." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... and nationality of the family whose ancestral portraits are to be supplied, so that there shall be no chance of the grossly improbable effect which ancestral portraits now have in many cases. Yes, I see no flaw in the scheme," my friend concluded, "and no difficulty that can't be easily overcome. We must alienate our household furniture, and make it so sensitively and exclusively the property of some impersonal agency—company or community, I don't care which—that any care of it shall be a sort of crime; any sense of responsibility for its preservation ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... you have a man to do? I bought the mare honestly, and I have kept her well. She can't say aught against me on that score. And whether she be princess or not, I'm loath to part ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... "Can't you use the pole or the oars?" said the bank director petulantly; "you kept me waiting half an hour before ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... know about it. In our great and free country, there's work for all Europe; so it's no use saying wages can't ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... the easy-going Younkins, "what's the use of going home? If the corn is gone, you can't get it back by looking at the ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... ain't nothin' in the world so beautiful as you, Aim-sa, an' that's a fac'. I ain't never seen nothin' o' wimmin before, 'cep' my mother, but I guess now I've got you I can't do wi'out you, you're that soft an' pictur'-like. Ye've jest got to say right here that you're my squaw, an' everything I've got is yours, on'y they things ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... one shriek—it rings in my ears yet. He spoke but one word—'Sister!' Yet that word has never left my ears, sleeping or waking, from that time to this. I had a sister once myself, Sam, and I loved her a thousand times more than I did life. In fact I never loved life after I lost her. And I can't tell you all about her—I'd choke if I tried. It is enough that she died, and the cause of her death died soon after, and I wasn't far away when—when he went under. But that isn't here nor there, Sam—let's go and warm up. Where do ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... towards him, and with a higher opinion of his manhood. It was the last time I ever took him by the hand, poor Brunow! and though it is a hundred chances to one in my mind now that he was at that very moment plotting to betray me, I can't somehow find it in my heart to feel so bitter against him as I should have felt against a stronger man. He never seemed to me to be altogether responsible, like other people, and the payment of his treachery was so swift and dreadful that the memory of it breeds a sort ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... heart-break and other causes. Hirsch Son, from the interior of Limbo, appeals to Bismark, "Lord Chancellor Cocceji is seized of my Plea, your gracious Lordship!"—"All the same," answers Bismark; "produce CAUTION, or you can't get out." Hirsch produces caution; and gets out, after a day or two;—and has been "brought to Protocol January 4th." No delay in this Court: both parties, through their Advocates, are now brought to book; the points they agree in will be sifted out, and laid on this ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Llangunnor, leering o'er the vale, Pourtrays a scene t' adorn romantic tale; But more than all the beauties of its site, Its former owner gives the mind delight. Is there a heart that can't affection feel For lands so rich as once to boast a Steele? Who warm for freedom, and with virtue fraught, His country dearly lov'd, and greatly taught; Whose morals pure, the purest style conveys, T' instruct his Britain to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... here? (He gives a nod of confirmation. She pauses a moment, and then with a sudden passionate movement flings herself into his arms.) Take me away, Arthur. I can't bear this life any longer. Larkspur bit me again this morning for the third time. I want to get away from ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... chestnut-drive! The service must be read." "Well, since we can't christen the child alive, By God we shall have to christen him dead!" ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... you are,' replied her sister; 'don't think anything more about it. And don't cry any more, dear; I can't bear to see you cry;' and she added in a whisper, ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... wonderfully quick-sighted, that they will swiftly pursue by Eye the Track of any Thing among the Trees, in the Leaves and Grass, as an Hound does by the Scent, where we can't perceive the least ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... another rifle in camp that carries so small a bullet," said our host, holding up the ball, "and there can't be the least doubt that the Hindu is the man ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... government was a plain, plugshot business of trade statistics, card indexes and ledgers. But I've come to the conclusion that this old town has to make it a good bit of a social compromise and a show, or it can't be carried on, no ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... as bad can be," the girl rejoined seriously; "it means if we can't get water and something to stop that leak with that we can't go on or go back. ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... in particular caught his eye. It was simple, nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: "From whom can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify it." ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... seems to know what to do, and how to get it done promptly. And look how neat the whole place is. Policed up. I'll bet anything we'll find that they have a military organization, or a military tradition at least. We'll have to find out; you can't understand a people till you understand their background and their ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... are accounted a judge—and ought to be a good one, Froumois! A gentleman can't live at court as you have done, and learn nothing of the points of a fine woman!" The good dame liked a compliment as well as ever she had done at Lake Beauport in her hey-day of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... I take the Tigmores now, Uncle Bernique, I'll pull Madeira's house about him. That company of his is not so secure that it could stand a blow at its head. If I take the Tigmores,—Uncle Bernique, listen a minute," he was pleading, "she has been used to much all her life. I can't take her father's fortune away from him. Don't you see that? I can't do anything. You understand?" he was commanding. Bernique ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... tossing in the motion of the water,—at all events, you can't say there was no water." Dr. Rigdon glanced at Gordon ...
— The Phantom Of Bogue Holauba - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the Colonel. "Pity if I can't have a little gratification once in a way. Ah! there is my Cochin China—how are you, sir, how are you? prancing, as usual, like an Egyptian war-horse. Come here, and be introduced to the Miss Montforts! We are in luck, sir! Miss Montfort, Miss—eh? ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... Sharon with a new intent, Making no laws, but keen to circumvent The laws of Nature (since he can't repeal) That break his failing body on the wheel. As Tantalus again and yet again The elusive wave endeavors to restrain To slake his awful thirst, so Sharon tries To purchase happiness that age denies; Obtains the shadow, but the substance goes, And ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... place beside a discriminating companion. Such a companion in Venice should of course be of the sex that discriminates most finely. An intelligent woman who knows her Venice seems doubly intelligent, and it makes no woman's perceptions less keen to be aware that she can't help looking graceful as she is borne over the waves. The handsome Pasquale, with uplifted oar, awaits your command, knowing, in a general way, from observation of your habits, that your intention is to go to see a picture ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... . . . They's a feelin' a-hidin' down in here— Of course I can't explain it, ner ever make it clear.— It was with us in that meetin', I don't want you to fergit! And it makes me kind o'nervous when I ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... hanged," he whispered, "if your amiable New Brunswick backwoods can't get up a thrill quite worthy of ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... goes up the street with her book in her hand, And her Good morning, Martin! Ay, lass, how d'ye do? Very well, thank you, Martin!—I can't understand! I might just as well never have cobbled a shoe! I can't understand it. She talks like a song; Her voice takes your ear like the ring of a glass; She seems to give gladness while limping along, Yet sinner ne'er suffer'd like that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... o'clock To empty ten or twelve barrels of beer, Five or six hogsheads of wine, And a basket full of dried grapes. You will come to the house of Venterboer With all your inmates And forget nobody. Come early and remain late, Else we can't swallow it all down. Then sing cheerfully, leap joyfully, Leap with both your legs. And, what I have yet forgotten, Think of the bridegroom and bride. If you have understood me well Let pass ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... growing so big and strong," said Mrs. Hunt thankfully. "Michael can't wear any of the things that fitted Geoff at his age; as for Alison, nothing seems to fit her for more than a month or two; then she gracefully bursts out of her garments! As for Geoff——! But he is getting really too independent: he went off ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... ... either life is too little a thing to matter or it's so big that such specks of it as we may be are of no account. These are two points of view. And then one has to consider if death can't be sometimes the last use made ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... woman waited on him. "And if I wear a black gown," said he, "is not that uniform as good as another, and if we have to go to church every day, at which some of the Poor Brothers grumble, I think an old fellow can't do better; and I can say my prayers with a thankful heart, Clivey my boy, and should be quite happy but for my—for my past imprudence, God forgive me. Think of Bayham here coming to our chapel to-day!—he often comes—that was ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... like that. I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell what to do. It is my energetic nature. I ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... can't go into all these details. You know now what Mr. Bernick means, and that is sufficient. Be so good as to go back to the yard; probably you are needed there. I shall be down myself in a little while. —Excuse ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... "I can't make the boy out," said his doctor. "He ought to get well now. Yet he doesn't. Doesn't seem to make an effort, somehow. If he was a bit older you'd think he didn't want to live. It's not natural. If he were to get any ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... scared 'em away. They didn't mean no harm, I reckon. I want to know can't I be of ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... Debby Wilder, or Dora, as aunt prefers to call me; and instead of laughing, I ought to be four feet under water, looking for something we have lost; but I can't dive, and my distress is dreadful, as ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... your wits," he shouted; "poor Sanborn's gone, and we can't save him. Cut loose from the aeroplane and haul up the rope-ladder. Constantio, you take the wheel. Wells, when you have got the ladder aboard, turn to and ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... lacking normal strength what am I to do? If I did not go and sup with her to-night, she would infallibly come after me to see what had happened. I can't lock my door in her face, and I can't tell her ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... You never will. I know you're good and kind, and that's why I can't understand your being so cruel. When we get back, how will you ever find time to go ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a telegram instead, Marked "urgent," and her duty plain To open it. Jane Austen read: "Your Lilly's got a cough again. Can't understand why she is kept At your expense." ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... "If I can't do anything else, I can hop. My mother will soon have me all right. She knows ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... think that this is Christmas Day!" Said Harold to his aunt, "I know it really is, and yet, Believe it—well, I can't! I've had a tree, my stocking, too, This morning full I found, But how can I believe it With no ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... House was once made the umpire in an amusing difference between two unnamed disputants. These two were arguing about religion, when one of them said: "I wonder, sir, you should talk of religion, when I'll hold you five guineas you can't say the Lord's prayer." "Done," said the other, "and Sir Richard Steele shall hold the stakes." The money being deposited the gentleman began with, "I believe in God", and so went right through the creed. "Well," said the other when he had finished, "I didn't ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... young faces make you high-school girls—and the boys, of course—as welcome as can be," he said. "I'd like to do something when I get out of this hospital in return for all your kindness to me. But if I can't get a grip on what ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... much mischief?" said Kate, raising herself on her arm. "I am sure the fishes must have been frightened, and the water- lilies broken. Oh! you can't think how nasty their great coiling stems were—just like snakes! But those pretty blue and pink flowers! Did it hurt them much, do ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right, In season or out of season. Stand up and back it in all men's sight— With that for your only reason! Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide The shame or mocking or laughter, But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side To the ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... nights ago, hevin' gone back thar after we separated, they wuz safe, but whether they are now I can't tell. Decidin' that they wuz foulin' the water too much, part o' the band has moved up to a place mighty close to our own snug house. They don't know yet that the hole in the wall is thar, but ef they stay ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... thinking. He was about all yesterday afternoon with Leonard Ward, and perhaps may have done something imprudent in the damp. I never know what to do. I can't bear him to be a coddle; yet he is always catching cold if I let him alone. The question is, whether it is worse for him to run risks, or to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all right!" cried Featherhead. "Of course, it's all right. What do we care, anyway? he can't see in the light. What right has Old Barney to say all these nuts belong ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... as he withdraws). Well, I've let myself in for a nice thing! Rummest way of treating a proposal I ever heard of. I should just like to tell that fellow RUSKIN what I think of his precious ideas. But there's one thing, though—she can't care about CULCHARD, or she wouldn't want him carted off like this.... Hooray, I never thought of that before! Why, there he is, dodging about to find out how I've got on. I'll ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... the annual budget tomorrow, the only important increase in any part of the budget is the estimate for national defense. Practically all other important items show a reduction. But you know, you can't eat your cake and have it too. Therefore, in the hope that we can continue in these days of increasing economic prosperity to reduce the Federal deficit, I am asking the Congress to levy sufficient additional taxes to meet the emergency spending ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... should we wail in rhyme Because so crudely you dissemble? We can't expect for one small dime, To see ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... I can't say I do. Why, just stop and think for a minute. You're asking me to put ten thousand dollars into a company, to fit out an expedition to go to this island—somewhere down near Panama, you say it is—and try to locate the ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... You can't easily see better pieces—nowhere more pompous pieces—of flat goldsmiths' work. Ghirlandajo was to the end of his life a mere goldsmith, with a gift of portraiture. And here he has done his best, and has put a long wall in wonderful ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... to see, Rullock, that we've simply passed those things by. We can't go back to that state of ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... nothing!" with some acerbity. "Often, when saying my prayers, I have wished I could forget him, but I can't, so I have to go on being uncharitable and in sin,—if indeed sin it be to harden one's heart against ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... During the trance he looks old, the corners of his mouth are drawn down, his voice is slow and weak, and he sits screening his eyes and trying vainly to remember what lay before and after the two months of the Brown experience. "I'm all hedged in," he says, "I can't get out at either end. I don't know what set me down in that Pawtucket horse-car, and I don't know how I ever left that store or what became of it." His eyes are practically normal, and all his sensibilities ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... clear through, and he cried out, "He's a wizard; he ought to be killed" because some people can't see others controlling themselves without thinking there's something wrong with them. Then he began to make snowballs and to pelt poor Tommie. Now Tommie, as has been said, was a good dodger, but nevertheless when it rains ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... jury are still absentees. In reply to my questions, my solicitor says that, as far as he can see, the damages can't be under L250, and may amount to a cold "Thou" (or thousand)! Adding that, if I had only let him brief WITHERINGTON, Q.C., I might have got off with L50, or even what is nominally called a farthing. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... your face any time you like, my dear," he said, "but I can't tie your hair ribbon. ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... proceeded, the Colonel radiant with every successful stroke, and blaming mallet, ball, and ground when otherwise, reiterating, "I can't make a ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... I had forgotten about it till this moment when you asked me to reconstruct the circumstances exactly. No, sir, I don't know a thing about it. I can't say it impressed itself on my ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... The result was always the same. Not only was there no tendency to brain disease—there was not even a perceptible derangement of the nervous system. 'I can find nothing the matter with you,' he said. 'I can't even account for the extraordinary pallor of your complexion. ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... has gone on since your day. Everybody must at least approach a certain style nowadays. One can't furnish so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various |
