"Improving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... What amount of argument, Sossius Senecio, will make a man know that he is improving in respect to virtue, if his advances in it do not bring about some diminution in folly, but vice, weighing equally with all his good intentions, "acts like the lead that makes the net go down?"[249] For neither in music nor grammatical knowledge could anyone recognize any improvement, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... expedition. Every day had its nimble, yet wholly imaginary account of what had happened, skipping from mouth to mouth, and from cabin to cabin. The French folk ran hither and thither in the persistent rain, industriously improving the dramatic interest of each groundless report. Alice's disturbed imagination reveled in the kaleidoscopic terrors conjured up by these swift changes of the form and color of the stories "from the front," all of them more or less tragic. To-day the party ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... kinds of satire, there is none so entertaining and universally improving, as that which is introduced, as it were occasionally, in the course of an interesting story, which brings every incident home to life, and by representing familiar scenes in an uncommon and amusing point of view, invests them with all the graces of novelty, while nature ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... chosen as one of the artistes, and arrayed in her best brown velveteen dress, with a new pale-yellow hair ribbon, she waited about in her usual agonies of stage fright. Learning from Dr. Linton, however improving it might be to her touch, was hardly conducive to self-complacency, and, after having suffered much vituperation for her imperfect rendering of a piece, it was decidedly appalling to have to play it in public, especially with the ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... neighbors, not because they are wrong, but because they are harms. The true explanation of the reference of liability to a moral standard, in the sense which has been explained, is not that it is for the purpose of improving men's hearts, but that it is to give a man a fair chance to avoid doing the harm before he is held responsible for it. It is intended to reconcile the policy of letting accidents lie where they fall, and the reasonable freedom ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... parted, Mackenzie to seek his lodging-place, Dr. Slavens to make the rounds of the stores in the hope of finding one open in which he could buy a new outfit of clothing. They were all closed and dark. The best that he could do toward improving his outcast appearance was to get shaved. This done, he found lodging in a place where he could have an apartment to himself, and even an oil-lamp to light him ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... country. I tramp away all alone. The little Swede begs often to go. At first I rather enjoyed him. But he is growing far too affectionate. I am not equal to caring for two young things; a broken-hearted girl and a homesick fat boy are too much for me. He is improving so rapidly I think it better for him to talk love stories and poetry to some one more appreciative. I am not in a very poetical mood. He might just as well talk to the pretty young teacher as to talk about her all ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... as it appeared. If I heard about me the spiteful criticisms of irritating critics, I was consoled by talking to Berlioz who honored me with his friendship and whose admiration for Hugo equalled mine. In the meantime my literary education was improving, and I made the acquaintance of the classics and found immortal beauties in them. My admiration for the classics, however, did not diminish my regard for Hugo, for I never could see why it was unfaithfulness to him not to despise Racine. It was fortunate for me that this was ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... undoubtedly, more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate successours, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphysick style only in his lines upon Hobson, the carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment, and more musick. Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... settles on the ground and begins to cultivate it, that day, yes, that hour, the owner will demand a high rent. And why will he ask this rent? Because, Young Senor, as soon as land is cultivated, the government puts a high tax on it. The Rats punish the farmers for improving the country. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... proceeded, gazing at his polished boots with a well-assumed air of embarrassment, "since I know that you are one of the enlightened ones, I will confess to you that I did keep a little establishment a la Pierre Loti. My Japanese teacher thought it would be a good way of improving my knowledge of the local idiom; and this knowledge meant an extra hundred pounds to me for interpreter's allowance, as it is called. I thought, too, that it would be a relief after diplomatic dinner parties to be able to swear for an hour or so, big round oaths in the company ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... delighted at it. Few armies have made so long a march in the same time that the army of the Indus has done. The country is every day improving. The road to Candahar from where we are now encamped lies in a continued valley seldom stretching in width above two miles; cultivation on each side of the road, and numberless villages nestling under the hills. ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... made grand illuminations, and thus the whole population celebrated the return of the Queen of Pleasure to her occupation, for she was at that time the presiding deity of Love. The experts in all the arts loved her much, because she spent considerable sums of money improving the Church in Rome, which contained poor Theodora's tomb, which was destroyed during that pillage of Rome in which perished the traitorous constable of Bourbon, for this holy maiden was placed therein in a massive ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Worth Street, formerly known as Anthony Street, after a Rutgers, and the Old Brewery Mission was establisht there. Thru Mrs. Pease, a member of the Market Street church, whose husband was the brave projector of the Five Points House of Industry, the church became interested in improving conditions. When Mr. Pease went south, his place was taken by Benjamin R. Barlow, one of the Market ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... matters had raised him to high position as a manufacturer at the time of the rapid advance of the cotton trade. Many poor men have followed the same path to wealth. Owen's peculiarity was that while he became a capitalist he preserved his sympathy with the working classes. While improving machinery, he complained that the 'living machinery' was neglected. One great step in his career was his marriage to the daughter of David Dale of New Lanark, a religious and worthy manufacturer.[179] Dale had employed a number of ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... spirits, and among the rest upon all his three brothers, which got him from the Norse populations the surname of Blod-axe, "Eric Blood-axe," his title in history. One of his brothers he had killed in battle before his old father's life ended; this brother was Bjorn, a peaceable, improving, trading economic Under-king, whom the others mockingly called "Bjorn the Chapman." The great-grandson of this Bjorn became extremely distinguished by and by as Saint Olaf. Head-King Eric seems to have had a violent wife, too. She was thought to have poisoned one of her other ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... quadrupeds, which all foreigners now class among the chief wonders of London, were brought from the marshes of Walcheren; the ancestors of Childers and Eclipse from the sands of Arabia. Already, however, there was among our nobility and gentry a passion for the amusements of the turf. The importance of improving our studs by an infusion of new blood was strongly felt; and with this view a considerable number of barbs had lately been brought into the country. Two men whose authority on such subjects was held in great esteem, the Duke of Newcastle and Sir John Fenwick, pronounced ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... such whose profession or calling compelled them to remain chaste, were generally shrunken and wrinkled like those of old men, and that the contrary is the case with those who use them to an excess. "All the athletæ," says he, "as well as those who for the sake of preserving or improving the voice, are, from their youth, debarred the pleasures of love, have their natural parts shrunken and wrinkled like those of old men, while, in such as have from an early age indulged in those delights to an excess, the vessel of those parts, by the habit of being dilated, ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... season advanced, the weather, far from improving, grew worse. Everything seemed to go wrong that year. After the squalls and mists, the sky was covered with a white expanse of heat, like plates of sheet iron. In two days, without transition, a torrid heat, an atmosphere of frightful heaviness, succeeded the damp cold of foggy ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the maddest enterprise, and if either had stopped to think they would have realised this fact. Two against four, and the latter armed with a quick-firer! And by way of improving matters, the two had outrun all their companions and were far out in a country swarming with ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... clever method that accelerates decomposition by improving aeration and facilitating frequent turning. A rotating drum holding from eight to eighteen bushels (the larger sizes look like a squat, fat, oversized oil drum) is suspended above the ground, top-loaded with organic matter, and then tumbled every few days for a few weeks until the ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... the privileges above accorded, Intelligence, Education, a Knowledge of the Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, and other Mechanical and Industrial Occupations, which they shall put into immediate operation, by improving the lands, and in other ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... and investigations into the creatures at the bottom of the sea, of Portuguese men-of-war, and albatrosses; and there were some orders to scientific-instrument makers for her to send to them—a very improving letter, but a good deal like a book of travels. Only at the end did the writer say, 'I hope my little daughter is happy among her cousins, and takes care to give her aunt no trouble, and to profit by her kind care. Your three cousins here, Mary, Lily, and Maggie, are exceedingly nice girls, and ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Augsburg, and the Loredani and Morosini, of Venice, and the Medici and Tornabuoni, of Florence, and many other names alien and all unfamiliar—merchants, most of them, it seemed, who had perpetuated their name and fame by improving the precise moment when their town, like plaster-of-Paris, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... brothels, your Lordship seems to think that I have not sufficiently recognized that the establishment of the system was a police measure, intended to give the Hong Kong Government some hold upon the brothels, in hope of improving the condition of the inmates, and of checking the odious species of slavery to which they are subjected. I can, however, assure your Lordship, whatever good intentions may have been entertained and expressed by Her Majesty's Government when the licensing system ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... more than the mere words, which were no more than "common form" of conversation? Probably, for something in them brought back her conference with the Major on Boxing Day morning when her mother was at church. What was that she had said to him when she was sitting on his knee improving his whiskers?—that if she, later on, saw reason to suppose his suspicions true, she would ask her mother point-blank. Why not? And here she was with the same suspicions, quite, quite independent of the Major. And see how dark it was in both rooms! One could say anything. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... of the topicks of human disquisition had found English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but success. This was a stock of knowledge sufficient for a mind so capable of appropriating and improving it. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Gibbon's Decline and Fall in bed: "Well, I really must read one more chapter before I go to sleep!" Speaking generally, the classics do not afford you a pleasure commensurate with their renown. You peruse them with a sense of duty, a sense of doing the right thing, a sense of "improving yourself," rather than with a sense of gladness. You do not smack your lips; you say: "That is good for me." You make little plans for reading, and then you invent excuses for breaking the plans. Something new, something which is not a classic, will surely draw you away from ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... ground. The old Army of the Valley crowed and clapped on the back the Light Division and D. H. Hill's troops. "Old times come again! Jest like we used to do at Winchester! Chirk up, you fellows! Your drill's improving every day. Old Jack'll let up on you after a while. Lord! it used to be seven ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... developments of savings institutions. The social importance of increasing and improving the agencies of savings for the masses is being more fully recognized, but much more might be done in these directions. Some possible changes have been suggested above, and a few words ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... number of songs or couplets which they recite to the music of the guitar. For the purpose of improving myself in the language I collected and wrote down upwards of one hundred of these couplets, the subjects of which are horse-stealing, murder, and the various incidents of gypsy-life in Spain. Perhaps a collection of songs more characteristic of the people ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... purpose is apt to be attended with something of excess or extravagance; but in "Ravenshoe" there is nothing morbid, nothing cynical, nothing querulous, nothing ascetic. The doctrine of the book is a reasonable enjoyment of all that is good in the world, with a firm purpose of improving the world in all possible ways. It is one of the many books which have appeared in England of late years which show the influence of the life and labors of the late Dr. Arnold. It is as inspiriting in its influence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... half of 1838 was spent at Les Jardies, where the novelist was busy either with his pen or in improving the interior and exterior of the property. A scheme for cultivating a pine-apple orchard in his grounds kept him from fretting over the sorry termination of his Sardinian dream. He intended to set five thousand plants, and sell the fruit at five francs a piece, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... indeed, allege repentance, but generally from hypocritical motives; either because they hope to gain some advantage by working on the feelings of philanthropists, or with a view to escaping, or, at any rate, improving their condition while in prison. Thus Lacenaire, when convicted for the first time, wrote in a moving strain to his friend Vigouroux in order to get money and help from him, "Repentance is the only course left open to me. You ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... country gentleman, made a motion of which he did not at all foresee the important consequences. He proposed that the members should enter into an association for the defence of their Sovereign and their country. Montague, who of all men was the quickest at taking and improving a hint, saw how much such an association would strengthen the government and the Whig party. [670] An instrument was immediately drawn tip, by which the representatives of the people, each for himself, solemnly recognised William as rightful and lawful King, and bound ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to the task of improving the talents given him. His well-directed efforts bore good fruit, as year after year Jehossee Island, from a half submerged, sedgy, boggy waste, grew into one of the finest rice-plantations in the south. The new lord of the manor ditched the marshes, and walled in his new rice-fields with dikes, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault; but, on the whole, he's a good worker. There's no vice ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... of men from the country came to town to see the circus. 11. In the shed is a mixture[44] of oars, seats, sails, rudders, booms, and gaffs. 12. They had to take the balance of his arm off. 13. Addison's essays were a great factor in improving the morals of his age. 14. General Manager Payson Tucker at once sent detectives to the scene, and every effort will be made to secure the guilty parties. 15. For a few days Coxey's army was a success as a show. 16. If it were not for him and a few others of his ilk the matter ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... Guizot, in his "Lectures on European Civilization." Civilized states are ever developing into a more perfect organization, and a more exact and more various operation; they are ever increasing their stock of thoughts and of knowledge: ever creating, comparing, disposing, and improving. Hence, while bodily strength is the token of barbarian power, mental ability is the honourable badge of civilized states. The one is like Ajax, the other like Ulysses; civilized nations are constructive, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... voluble tongue running at full speed could barely give the outlines of it. He informed her, likewise, that he had been sent for, while lying in Trent, by Captain Weisspriess, whom he had seen at an inn of the Ultenthal, weak but improving. Beppo was the captain's propitiatory offering to Vittoria. Meanwhile the ladies sat on a terrace, overlooking the court, where a stout fellow in broad green braces and blue breeches lay half across a wooden table, thrumming a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... man lived for nearly a century in the one place. It may be said that not long before he died he wagered that he would reach his hundredth year, but he missed that by three years. His whole energy and thought were devoted to improving his estate. He had no notion of art or things of that kind, yet he managed to make his village and its surroundings very beautiful by long years of care. The sleepy place where he lived was right away from the currents of modern life. If you walked over a mile ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... the horses, and Pete, from his position between Billy and Hopalong, was crawling from rock to rock in an endeavor to get near enough to use his Colts, his favorite and most effective weapons. Intermittent puffs of smoke arising from a point between Skinny and Buck showed where Lanky Smith was improving each shining hour. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... remedy had anything to do with the result in this case. We only wish every mother would have faith enough to give this simple treatment a fair trial, making up the lather as described in this book and not, as many do, "improving" on our method by rubbing the soap on the wet skin and making a sort of lather ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... she answered. "At least I am every moment improving in health and spirits, now I ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... the resolution of the House of the 31st ultimo, I have the honor herewith to transmit a report from the Secretary of War, accompanied by the original manuscript report of Captain Thomas J. Crane, dated February 3, 1844, on the best mode of improving the navigation of the Ohio River at the Falls of Louisville, together with the original maps ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... sit, And wonder how first it came; They'll talk of their schemes for improving it, And will not ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... training during childhood," says President Eliot, "there should result in the child a taste for interesting and improving reading, which should direct and inspire its subsequent intellectual life. That schooling which results in this taste for good reading, however, unsystematic or eccentric the schooling may have been, has achieved a main end of elementary education; ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman
... letter also was sent to me, addressed to a friend of mine, and by him communicated to me, in which this identical poem was singled out for fervent approbation. What then shall we say? Why, let the poet first consult his own heart, as I have done, and leave the rest to posterity,—to, I hope, an improving posterity. The fact is, the English public are at this moment in the same state of mind with respect to my poems, if small things may be compared with great, as the French are in respect to Shakspeare, and not the French alone, but almost ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... incomparably longer time at her disposal. Nor do I believe that any great physical change, as of climate, or any unusual degree of isolation to check immigration, is actually necessary to produce new and unoccupied places for natural selection to fill up by modifying and improving some of the varying inhabitants. For as all the inhabitants of each country are struggling together with nicely balanced forces, extremely slight modifications in the structure or habits of one inhabitant would often give it an advantage over others; and still further ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... leave a little lady with a slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside immediately when the door is closed, and with an inclination to walk up and down the room rather than to seat herself quietly at her embroidery, or other rational and improving occupation. At least this was the effect on Lucy; and you will not, I hope, consider it an indication of vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she just glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it. The ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... is curled a little and fluffed a little, and that's what makes it look different, too," The Author decided, and stared at me critically. "You are improving," he ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... practically-minded engineers were improving upon their rattling "heat engines," a group of "pure" scientists (men who devote fourteen hours of each day to the study of those "theoretical" scientific phenomena without which no mechanical progress would be possible) were following ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... bulk of export revenues. Since 1986, the government - with the support of foreign countries and international agencies - has acted to rehabilitate and stabilize the economy by undertaking currency reform, raising producer prices on export crops, increasing prices of petroleum products, and improving civil service wages. The policy changes are especially aimed at dampening inflation and boosting production and export earnings. During 1990-2001, the economy turned in a solid performance based on continued investment in ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... classicist he entered into a solemn compact to hold all their conversation, even on the most trivial topics, in Latin, with heavy penalties for careless lapses into English. Probably the linguistic result would have astonished Quintilian, but the experiment at least had a certain influence in improving the young man's Latinity. Another favourite dissipation was that of translating English masterpieces into the ancient tongue; there still survives among Page's early papers a copy of Bryant's "Waterfowl" done ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... as he sat near the bed so vigilant and anxious in his desire to be of service. And when the doctor came, how his great blue eyes watched his every movement! Then he would waylay the doctor as he left the house, asking if Carl were not improving, and if he would not be up in a few days. But the physician did not dare encourage the boy. It was soon observed that every morning and evening, immediately after the doctor's visits, Tom walked over to the office in the warehouse, where Giles more than once found him engaged ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... while after the capture of Breda there was breathing time in Holland, and Maurice was busy in increasing and improving his army. Parma was fettered by the imperious commands of Philip, who had completely crippled him by withdrawing a considerable number of his troops for service in the war which he was waging with France. But above all, the destruction of the Armada, and with it of the naval supremacy of ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... trill, after a period, longer or shorter, of proper practice. Stiff, strong voices master it sooner than small, weak ones. I expended certainly ten years upon improving it, because as a young girl I had so very little strength, although my voice was very flexible in executing all ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... visitor. Perhaps they entertained him with 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul'; and to us, who are acquainted with Captain Brown's sad want of relish for 'the pure wells of English undefiled,' it may be matter for congratulation that he has had the opportunity of improving his taste by holding converse with an elegant and refined member of the British aristocracy. But from some mundane failings who is ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... politeness to visitors and the intelligent answers they give to questions. I am afraid our British veterans, brave as they are in the field, occupy themselves, when laid up as invalids, more in destroying their bodies by spirituous liquors than in improving their minds by reading. The Chapel of this establishment where were displayed the banners and trophies taken at different epochs from the enemies of France, and which were much mutilated by the wars since the Revolution, is now stripped ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... that the power of soils to absorb and hold moisture depends on the amount of sand, clay, or humus which they contain, and the compactness of the particles. We see also how useful organic matter is in improving sandy and clayey soils. ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... said Mrs. Dashwood; "our little troublesome is becoming quite a well-behaved young person. I feel very grateful to you, Miss Kerr, for I believe it is all owing to your tender care and kind good-nature that the child is improving ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... not study and uphold the scholastic philosophy without improving it; the works of Aristotle, of which it is said the early schoolmen possessed only a vitiated translation from the Arabic,[442] was, at the period these friars sprung up, but imperfectly understood and taught. Michael Scot, with the assistance of a learned Jew,[443] translated and published the ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... captain and Peter were working at the timber, the rest of us were smoothing down the planks; and we had now a large pile ready to fix on as soon as the ribs were set up. My father, Marian, and I were improving in the manufacture of matting. We could not, however, make it of sufficient strength for the sails; still, the material we manufactured would serve to form a roof for the cabin, or it might do for kilts ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... into one of those nests, where he will be protected against idleness by the little he will do, and against revolutions by the little he will be. It's a charming profession; the very smell of books is improving; merely by breathing it you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... may be true. But before you get to be a manager anywhere you will have to work up to it through a great many years of lower positions, and you must learn to write." The boy could not see why, and went to find work elsewhere, before improving his writing. ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... There was no improving of the occasion, but with the same sad gravity the school was dismissed; and the children learned that day one of life's golden lessons—that the man who remains master of himself ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... which he had already rehearsed his "Bridging the Abyss." Here, with a couple of confidential assistants who had traveled with him in America, he worked from morning till night, correcting, revising, improving, in the midst of stretched cords and nets. And then came his interview with Harrasford, his engagement at the Astrarium, his meeting with Lily, in ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... falling fast over the Australasian lines. The darkness was welcome, for it brought a certain rest and coolness to the thousands of sun-baked and weary men. For two days they had slaved like navvies—digging, sand-bagging, reorganising trenches, improving communications, and bringing up supplies, Maxims, and ammunition. It was not the usual thing. Indeed, it was most unusual. Only the Staff knew why, for this war has taught us that we must not advertise our coming events. Of course the Tommies groused. They always do. It is ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... farmhouses; in short, a monotony, a dead stillness, spreading over the whole country, an absence of life and activity that quite overcame my spirits. The home of the Mecklenburg noble, who weighs like a load on his peasants instead of improving their condition, gives me the idea of the den of some wild beast, who devastates even thing about him, and surrounds himself with the silence of the grave." Pertz, Leben Stein, i. 192. For a more cheerful description of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... such by hard work; by improving moments before they pass into hours, [15] and hours that other people may occupy in the pursuit of pleasure. They spend no time in sheer idleness, in talking when they have nothing to say, in building air- castles or floating off on the wings of sense: all ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... early days of her marriage. Between the candlesticks were clusters of violets. A bright wood fire burned upon the hearth, but the golden-brown curtains were not yet drawn upon the evening. The golden-brown carpet, newly cleaned, was speckless again. Marie moved about, improving on the table arrangements, and the hands which touched this or that into better design were little, slim and white. The finger nails had regained their tapering prettiness. And as she smiled with pleasure, between her lips an unblemished row of teeth showed. She wore black, to her mother's ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... Hilary in the town, and she stopped to speak to me. She is reforming, too," Margaret added, with another smile. "I seem to be having quite an improving effect upon other people's characters. She told me that one reason why she took such a dislike to me was because she was afraid that I would accept her sister's offer to go out to Los Angelos with her in ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... decidedly improving," said Maurice, as he entered. "I feel certain he recognized me to-day, and I thought he attempted ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the man to neglect his opportunities, and there can be no doubt that as soon as his purpose had established itself in his mind he made use of every opportunity that presented itself for improving his meagre scientific knowledge, in order that his proposal might be set forth in a plausible form. In other words, he got up the subject. The whole of his geographical reading with regard to the Indies up to this time had been ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... Northern people than of our own; and further, because of their larger population, as well as their greater facility in obtaining recruits from foreign countries, the Administration continued assiduously to exert every faculty to increase the efficiency of the army by addition to its numbers, by improving its organization, and by supplying the needful munitions and equipments. Inactivity is the prolific source of evil to an army, especially if composed of new levies, who, like ours, had hurried from their homes at their country's call. For these, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... of a circle is sometimes found to be quite beneficial. If a circle meets night after night with the same membership, but without obtaining any perceptible results, then it may be well to consider the desirability of adding some new elements to the membership in the hope of improving the conditions. Sometimes the addition of a new sitter of the right physical and psychical temperament works a most remarkable improvement, and in many of such cases noteworthy phenomena are then produced ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... execution, or the day of the last great trial. I will not now discuss it further with one who is yet on the other side of the veil. But if you will cast in your lot with us as a brother, come with me to the council, who are still sitting, to arrange the future march of the army, and the means of improving our victory." ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... promotes and develops the welfare of the wage earner of the United States, by improving the working conditions and advancing their ...
— Citizenship - A Manual for Voters • Emma Guy Cromwell
... nature of man is very prone to abuse and pervert such natural helps to idolatry and superstition. This instance of the Jews, wretchedly improving their phylacteries to superstitious purposes, their idolizing of the brazen serpent; and thereby of a cure, turning it into a plague, a snare, with the like, are sufficient testimonies. And we see how the papists ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... another, which has grieved us all deeply. My friend, the fatal malady that has been for so many generations connatural in our family has now claimed another victim. Poor Rosario, who, thanks to our cares, was improving gradually in her health, has entirely lost her reason. Her incoherent words, her frenzy, her deadly pallor, bring my mother and my sister forcibly to my mind. This is the most serious case that I have witnessed in our family, for the question here is ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... this very moment—when old Wardle and Sam Weller were approaching the hole with cautious steps and 30 Mr. Benjamin Allen was holding a hurried consultation with Mr. Bob Sawyer on the advisability of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional practice—it was at this very moment that a head, face, and shoulders emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage; But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thornbit ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... Governor] intends to introduce basket-making. We have, in addition to the public schools, visited several private ones, and are pleased to find so many children receiving education: this is really the chief source of hope for improving the morals of the Greeks, and dispersing the gross darkness which surrounds this people, whose long servitude and sufferings under very hard masters have almost driven them ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... importance than that of pecuniary interest. In its manifold phases it embraces the stability of our republican institutions, resting on the actual political equality of all its citizens, and includes the fulfillment of the task which has been so happily begun—that of Christianizing and improving the condition of the Africans who have by the will of Providence been placed in our charge. Comparing the results of our own experience with those of the experiments of others who have borne similar relations to the African ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... our Sabbath meetings, I may mix with others and take part in a more active and busy life. In itself, I do not suppose that the trade of a currier is a very pleasant one; but that matters little if, when work is done, one has leisure for some sort of communication with others, and for improving one's mind. It will be to me something like what going to court in London would be to you, Walter. I am most grieved about my mother. She will ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... and great wealth. He said to the King one evening at supper, "Your Majesty does me the favour to treat me with great kindness: I should be inconsolable if I had the misfortune to fall under your displeasure. If such a calamity were to befall me, I should endeavour to divert my grief by improving some beautiful estates of mine in such and such a province;" and he thereupon gave a description of three or four fine seats. About a month after, talking of the disgrace of a Minister, he said, "I hope ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... attitudes, it may be said briefly that the relative unimportance of enlightenment is a fact, but no argument against it. Modesty, austerity, and clean living on the part of parents will counterbalance much negligence in direct guidance or protection. But the former need be in no wise lessened by improving the latter. Of the second, I dare affirm that if the men and women in America should stop whatever they are doing for an evening and read this book, there would be less harmful imagination as a result than from the occupations which its reading would replace. Of ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... an improving power, using all the wealth entrusted to it to the best advantage, the nation is enriched in root and branch at once, and the Government is enabled, for every order presented, to return a quantity of wealth greater than the order was written for, according to the fructification obtained in the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... in mind, we seek another line of thought. The world grows smaller every day. Russia fights huge battles five thousand miles from her capital. England governs India. Spain and the United States contend for empire in the antipodes. Our rapidly improving means of communication, electric trains, and, it may be, flying machines, cables, and wireless telegraphy, link lands so close together that no man lives to-day the subject of an isolated state. Rather, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... opportunity to say that observation has convinced me that all good and true book-lovers practise the pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed. Indeed, I fully believe with Judge Methuen that no book can be appreciated until it has been slept with and dreamed over. You recall, perhaps, that eloquent passage in his noble defence of the poet Archias, wherein Cicero (not Kikero) refers to ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... you," I answered. "Matters are improving. I got a thrashing the first day and have never had one since. It has been blowing pretty hard till now, but we shall have fine weather in time, and I shall like the life very well. It is better to begin with the rough and to end with the smooth ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the Argentine Republic, stands on the right bank of the broad but shallow river Plate, 150 m. from the Atlantic; it is a progressing city, improving in appearance, with a cathedral, several Protestant churches, a university and military school, libraries and hospitals; printing, cigar-making, cloth and boot manufacture are the leading industries; it is the principal ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... too, and he questioned me up about my business as sharp as I ever was questioned; seemed to kind of strike his fancy; I guess he wanted to find out if there was any money in it. He was making money, hand over hand, then; and he never stopped speculating and improving till he'd scraped together three or four hundred thousand dollars, they said a million, but they like round numbers at Moffitt, and I guess half a million would lay over it comfortably and leave a few thousands to spare, probably. Then he came on to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Improving Cattle. The fact that it is not possible for every farmer to possess pure-bred cattle is no reason why he should not improve the stock he has. He can do this by using pure-bred sires that possess the qualities most to be desired. ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... busy, all day and every day. And it is well that it is so, for in this climate the only way to keep one's faculties from rust is to keep them constantly in use. It is encouraging, however, to find the good results of our labor so apparent. I think our people are improving very fast, and they are very contented and happy. (Next week don't be surprised, however, to ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... knowledge. He who possesses most of the information of his age will not quietly submit to neglect its current acquisitions, but will go on improving as long as means and opportunities offer; while he who finds himself ignorant of most things, is only too apt to shrink from a labour which becomes Herculean. In this manner ambition is stifled, the mind gets to be inactive, and ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... consciousness in the present! Here at least is a vision, a theory, [149] theoria, which reposes on no basis of unverified hypothesis, which makes no call upon a future after all somewhat problematic; as it would be unaffected by any discovery of an Empedocles (improving on the old story of Prometheus) as to what had really been the origin, and course of development, of man's actually attained faculties and that seemingly divine particle of reason or spirit in him. Such a doctrine, at more leisurable moments, would of course ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... no 'poaching' on wet ground, or absurd conflict with frost. Accept every opportunity of wheeling out manure; and as long as the ground can be dug without waste of labour, proceed to open trenches, make drains, and mend walks, because this is the period for improving, and the place must be very perfect which affords no work for winter weather. Dispose of all rubbish by the simple process of putting it in trenches when digging plots for early seeds. In sheds and outhouses many tasks may be found, such as making large substantial tallies for the garden; the ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... retarding and preventing that detested union, I resolved to avail myself of my talent for drawing, and professed myself a master of that science, in hope of being employed by the father of Serafina, who, I knew, let slip no opportunity of improving his daughter's education. Accordingly I had the good fortune to attract his notice, was invited to his house, honoured with his approbation, and furnished with unrestricted opportunities of conversing with the dear object of my love. The passion which her beauty ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... letter. We had the intelligence from George last Thursday week, having been only prepared for the illness by a note received from Arabel the day before. Ba was sadly affected at first; miserable to see and hear. After a few days tears came to her relief. She is now very weak and prostrated, but improving in strength of body and mind: I have no fear for the result. I suppose you know, at least, the very little that we know; and how unaware poor Mr. Barrett was of his imminent death: 'he bade them,' says Arabel, 'make him comfortable for ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... able adviser, Hakuseki, desired to restore the currency to the system pursued in the Keicho era (1596-1614), but their purpose was thwarted by insufficiency of the precious metals. They were obliged to be content with improving the quality of the coins while decreasing their weight by one half. These new tokens were called kenji-kin, as they bore on the reverse the ideograph ken, signifying "great original." The issue of the new coins took place in the year 1710, and at the same time the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... memorable talk with Warde; recorded because it illustrates Warde's methods, and because, ultimately, it came to be regarded by John as the turning-point of his intellectual life. Since he had taken the Lower Remove, John's energies of mind and body had been concentrated upon improving himself at games. Vaguely aware that some of the School-prizes were within his grasp, he had not deemed them worth the winning. To ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... designed at the factory bear names which consist of a pair of initial letters, with a number affixed. The letters indicate the type of the machine; the number indicates its place in the series of continually improving variants of the same type. Three of these types were gradually being evolved at the factory in the course of the year 1911. The earliest to attain to practical success was the B.E. type of machine. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... he had stepped down from the mowing machine and had been ensnared by the idea of improving it. Why had he ever taken it up? Did he need money? No. Or was the work at a standstill? No. But the steel would on; it had need of a man; it had taken him by the throat and said, ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... assumes the name of Madame de Korff. Trial of Cardinal de Rohan and others for forgery; of the king, December 11th, 1792. Trianon, Little, pavilion of the, given to the queen; the queen at the; parties at the; festivities at the; the queen improving the. Tricolor flag adopted in Paris. Tronchet, M. Tuileries, shabbiness of the, and removal of the court to the. Turgot, A.R.J.; dismissal ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... made him a visit, still hoping to find He had took better care for improving his mind: He told me his dreams, talk'd of eating and drinking, But he scarce reads his Bible, ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... corresponding with her husband, had clearly given up all idea of returning to England or of Montagu joining her abroad. She was quite content with her state, which, after all, so far as we know, was her own choice. She took a house at Lovere, and interested herself in improving it ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Saltzburg, having asserted that there existed antipodes, the Archbishop of Mentz declared him a heretic; and the Abbot Trithemius, who was fond of improving steganography or the art of secret writing, having published several curious works on this subject, they were condemned, as works full of diabolical mysteries; and Frederic II., Elector Palatine, ordered Trithemius's original work, which was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... had a great effect in improving the South, that section has not yet been transformed into an Eden. In spite of farm demonstrations, experiment stations, and boys' and girls' clubs, the stubborn inertia of a rural population fixed on the soil has only been shocked, not routed. Much land is barely ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... is the common tendency of living beings to go on doing what they have been doing most recently. The last habit is the strongest. Hence, if he took great pains last time, he will play better now, and will take a like degree of pains, and play better still next time, and so go on improving while life and vigour last. If, on the other hand, he took less pains last time, he will play worse now, and be inclined to take little pains next time, and so gradually deteriorate. This, at least, is the common ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and a small parcel ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... express, and conceive, if possible, the horrours of imprisonment attended with reproach and ignominy, of involuntary association with the refuse of mankind, with wretches who were before too abandoned for society, but, being now freed from shame or fear, are hourly improving their vices ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... letters or along the sequence of detailed occurrence, we are never more than a little while, or a little distance, from his brother Orion. In one form or another Orion is ever present, his inquiries, his proposals, his suggestions, his plans for improving his own fortunes, command our attention. He was one of the most human creatures that ever lived; indeed, his humanity excluded every form of artificiality —everything that needs to be acquired. Talented, trusting, child-like, carried away by the impulse of the moment, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at Oxford, he was believed to have been struck with an uncommon disease, and to have been consumed with vermin, as a mark of divine vengeance, for his multiplied crimes and treasons. He had been so little studious of improving his private fortune in those civil wars, of which he had been one principal author, that the parliament thought themselves obliged from gratitude to pay the debts which he had contracted.[***] We now return to the military operations, which, during the winter, were carried on with vigor ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... William has fixed twenty-two families, who are all upon the improving hand, the meanest growing richer; and find themselves so well off, that no consideration will induce them to work for others, not even in harvest: their industry has no bounds; nor is the day long enough for ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... himself by my side, he continued to converse in his peculiar way—bluntly eloquent and carelessly learned—till the half-hour bell rang. He talked on Australia, the Wakefield system, cattle, books, his trouble in arranging his library, his schemes for improving his property and embellishing his grounds, his delight to find my father look so well, his determination to see a great deal of him, whether his old college friend would or not; he talked, in short, of everything except politics ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those of the human race. The great distinction between man and the inferior animals is, that the one learns almost every art progressively, by his own experience operating with the accumulated knowledge of past generations, whilst the others work by a fixed rule, improving very little, if any, during the course of their own lives, and rarely deviating to-day from the plans pursued by the same species a thousand years ago. It is true that the swallow, which doubtless ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... still scolded about him; but even she could not help seeing that on the whole he was improving. He "cared" more and "forgot" less. He could always learn easily, and now he really tried to learn. His lessons, instead of going through his head "threading my grandmother's needle," went in and staid there. The blue book got a few marks, it ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... were uniform in size, shape and construction, there was nothing to prevent the occupant from subsequently enlarging and improving his house. For the present, however, the interests of all were best served by speed ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sir Mark. "'London, South, and Channel. Same as number three.' Confound number three! Who wants to refer to that? Oh, here we are: 'Light winds, shifting to east. Fine generally.' Climate's improving, girls. More coffee, Myra. Pass my ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... the unassuming tomb Of him who told where health and beauty bloom, Of him whose lengthened life improving ran— A blameless, useful, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... are applying to it the principle of the Minie musket, and we are improving the material. We hope to make our guns as capable of resisting rapid and continued firing as well and as long as the English and the Swedish guns, which are the best in Europe, can do. And we find that we can throw a ball ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... fifteen days of their first acquaintance they were bound together as friends and partners. Altotas, in the course of a long life devoted to alchymy, had stumbled upon some valuable discoveries in chemistry, one of which was an ingredient for improving the manufacture of flax, and imparting to goods of that material a gloss and softness almost equal to silk. Balsamo gave him the good advice to leave the philosopher's stone for the present undiscovered, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... wrong. The situation is improving. Business conditions are already vastly better. It takes time. You'll get ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... Espana, I believe that soon we shall not even miss those made in Flandes. What I say of the painters applies also to embroiderers, who are already producing excellent embroidered works, and are continually improving in that art. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... undeniable right to its shelter and protection, and required at my hands to be sent home again. In my first simplicity,—finding them gentlemanly in manners, passably educated, and only tempted a little beyond their means by a laudable desire of improving and refining themselves, or, perhaps for the sake of getting better artistic instruction in music, painting, or sculpture than our country could supply,—I sometimes took charge of them on my private responsibility, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seeing my dearest wish granted: That my son may not as his father be, but a better. What would become of the house, and what of the city if each one Were not with pleasure and always intent on maintaining, renewing, Yea, and improving, too, as time and the foreigner teach us! Man is not meant, forsooth, to grow from the ground like a mushroom, Quickly to perish away on the spot of ground that begot him, Leaving no trace behind of himself and his animate action! As by the house we straightway ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... more attended to in these seats of knowlege, perhaps would be very considerable. The leisure and abilities of the learned in these retirements might either suggest expedients, or execute those dictated by wiser heads[k], for improving it's method, retrenching it's superfluities, and reconciling the little contrarieties, which the practice of many centuries will necessarily create in any human system: a task, which those who are deeply employed in business, and the more active scenes of the profession, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... The word sa@mskara is used by Pa@nini who probably preceded Buddha in three different senses (1) improving a thing as distinguished from generating a new quality (Sata utkar@sadhana@m sa@mskara@h, Kas'ila on Pa@nini, VI. ii. 16), (2) conglomeration or aggregation, and (3) adornment (Pa@nini, VI. i. 137, 138). In the Pi@takas the word sa@nkhara is used ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... were at work prospecting for gold, and improving the country in all manner of ways, Lobengula became cantankerous. It must be remembered that he suffered from gout, for which he was treated by Dr. Jameson. Now, Lobengula without gout was sufficiently savage to cause much apprehension; with it, it is impossible to describe the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... invited Douglass to visit her at Andover, Massachusetts, where she consulted with him in reference to the establishment of an industrial institute or trades school for colored youth, with a view to improving their condition in the free States. Douglass approved heartily of this plan, and through his paper made himself its sponsor. When, later on, Mrs. Stowe abandoned the project, Douglass was made the subject of some criticism, though he was not at all to blame for Mrs. Stowes ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... worth understanding,' Herbert answered in his clear musical voice—'well worth understanding, Selah, especially for you, dearest. If, in imitation of obsolete fashions, you wished to read a few verses of some improving volume every night and morning, as a sort of becoming religious exercise in the elements of self-culture, I don't know that I could recommend you a better book to begin upon than the Poems and Ballads. Don't you see the moral of ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... this home organization the other multifarious tasks of devising new weapons for the war, improving the various types of aircraft, building larger submarines and guns of greater calibre went forward with unimpaired speed. Nothing was too vast or too complicated to be undertaken, no detail was too trivial to be studied. Politics, economics, military ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... and I'll keep an eye on the accounts. But you needn't think I'll sit at home "improving" myself: Not I. I'll do that church-work. That girl gave me a lesson this morning, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... He would have resented an attempt to use his troubles as a text for improving remarks, since he already knew his failings. What he desired was a means of escaping their consequences, and the American, whose tone was reassuringly matter of fact, seemed to offer it. He began an explanation and, with the help of a few leading questions, made his financial position ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... becoming the best and truest friend of my youth and early manhood. My circumstances changed, however, soon after that marriage, for as I was now nearly eight years old it was deemed appropriate that I should be sent to a boarding-school, both by way of improving my mind and of having some nonsense knocked out of me, which, indeed, was promptly accomplished by the pugnacious kindness of my schoolfellows. Among the latter was one, my senior by a few years, who became a very distinguished journalist. I refer to the late Horace Voules, so long ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... strongly, and he loved to have them by his side. It is true that he secretly regretted Louise was not more genuine, that Beth was so cynical and frank, and that Patsy was not more diplomatic. But he reflected that he had had no hand in molding their characters, although he might be instrumental in improving them; so he accepted the girls as they were, thankful that their faults were not glaring, and happy to have found three such interesting nieces ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... thought to herself: "With my few brains I am yet wiser than you. A heartfelt, willing kiss from your child would make you happier than all the learning that you make so much fuss about, and a caress or a spank from you—each at the proper time—would do little Zeno more good than all the world-improving discoveries in search of which you embitter your ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... by African standards and improving with the help of the growing mobile cell system domestic: adequate system of cable, microwave radio relay, tropospheric scatter, radiotelephone communication stations, and a domestic satellite system ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... enough for any pursuit to interest her. She was not musical, could not draw; and when Mrs. Poynsett had, by way of experiment, asked her to read aloud an hour a day, and selected the Lives of the Lindsays, as an unexceptionable and improving book, full of Scottish history, and even with African interest, she dutifully did her task as an attention to her invalid mother-in-law, but in a droning husky tone, finding it apparently as severe a penance as ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Claustro dos Filippes the work of Joao de Castilho comes to an end. He had been actively employed for about forty years, beginning and ending at Thomar, finishing Belem, and adding to Alcobaca, besides improving the now vanished royal palace and even fortifying Mazagao on the Moroccan coast, where perhaps his work may still survive. In these forty years his style went through more than one complete change. Beginning with late Gothic he was ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... two were impressed. He himself was impressed. His notion, which he was modifying and improving every moment, seemed to him perfect and ever more perfect. He was intensely and happily stimulated in the act of creation; and they ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... tramp forth again. We generally make our final camp about 8 o'clock, and within an hour and a half most of us are in our sleeping-bags.... At the long halt we do our best for our animals by building snow walls and improving their rugs, &c. ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... given her a brief experience of how things should be done, and how they should look, and she had never forgotten; Penelope, on the other hand, had forgotten, or never noticed Angela and Poppy, fired by Esther's example, had spasmodic passions for improving the house or garden, during which every one suffered more or less, and they themselves were exhausted long before the huge tasks they had ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch |
