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Common   /kˈɑmən/   Listen
Common

adjective
(compar. commoner; superl. commonest)
1.
Belonging to or participated in by a community as a whole; public.  "Common lands are set aside for use by all members of a community"
2.
Having no special distinction or quality; widely known or commonly encountered; average or ordinary or usual.  "A common sailor" , "The common cold" , "A common nuisance" , "Followed common procedure" , "It is common knowledge that she lives alone" , "The common housefly" , "A common brand of soap"
3.
Common to or shared by two or more parties.  Synonym: mutual.  "The mutual interests of management and labor"
4.
Commonly encountered.  Synonym: usual.  "The usual greeting"
5.
Being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language.  Synonyms: vernacular, vulgar.  "A vernacular term" , "Vernacular speakers" , "The vulgar tongue of the masses" , "The technical and vulgar names for an animal species"
6.
Of or associated with the great masses of people.  Synonyms: plebeian, unwashed, vulgar.  "Behavior that branded him as common" , "His square plebeian nose" , "A vulgar and objectionable person" , "The unwashed masses"
7.
Of low or inferior quality or value.  Synonym: coarse.  "Produced...the common cloths used by the poorer population"
8.
Lacking refinement or cultivation or taste.  Synonyms: coarse, rough-cut, uncouth, vulgar.  "Behavior that branded him as common" , "An untutored and uncouth human being" , "An uncouth soldier--a real tough guy" , "Appealing to the vulgar taste for violence" , "The vulgar display of the newly rich"
9.
To be expected; standard.



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"Common" Quotes from Famous Books



... as she alone of all the world called him—she neither loved nor respected; him she only admired and believed in. He knew his aunt's feelings well enough; she was his ally, not his friend; kinship bound them, not affection; for his brain's sake and their common blood she was his servant, his heart ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... words his brothers, Francois and Antoine, drew close to him with a common impulse. And they stood there all three, a valiant little group, their hearts uniting and beating with one and the same delight at the idea that their father would be gladdened, that the good news they were sending him would help him towards recovery. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... things: of "dates"—vulgar enough affairs many of them appeared to be. But she no longer dismissed them with that. She always wondered now if the sordid-looking adventure might not be at heart the divine adventure. Things which she would at one time have called "common" and turned from as such she brooded over now as sorry expression of a noble thing. And then she would go home to her friends at night and sometimes they would seem the moving-picture show—their pleasures and standards—the whole of their lives. And she sorrowed that where there ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... leave of their relatives and set out. One of them attached himself to the study of the civil law, the other to that of the canon law, and thus they continued to apply themselves for some length of time. But the subject of Decretals takes a much narrower range than is embraced by the common law, so Bucciolo, who pursued the former, made greater progress than did Pietro Paolo, and, having taken a licentiate's degree, he began to think of returning to Rome. "You see, my dear fellow student," he observed to his friend Paolo, "I am now a licentiate, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... doctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, I may naturally ask what is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be informed of that before I dose myself with either or with both. Now, my young friends, what is this Terewth then? Firstly (in a spirit of love), what is the common sort of Terewth—the working clothes—the every-day wear, my young friends? Is ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Treason sharpely, yet the Traitor Stands in worse case of woe. And thou Posthumus, That didd'st set vp my disobedience 'gainst the King My Father, and makes me put into contempt the suites Of Princely Fellowes, shalt heereafter finde It is no acte of common passage, but A straine of Rarenesse: and I greeue my selfe, To thinke, when thou shalt be disedg'd by her, That now thou tyrest on, how thy memory Will then be pang'd by me. Prythee dispatch, The Lambe entreats the Butcher. Wher's ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... to be sustained, but because in this source of consolation there is something, we have reason to believe, of the divine spirit; something of that goodness which detects amidst our own evil doings, a redeeming quality; something which, even in our fallen nature, we possess in common with the angels; which had its being in the old time when they trod the earth, and lingers on ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... wrest afourth, and even still more than a fourth, from the darkness of thought. I want more ideas of soul-life. I am certain that there are more yet to be found. A great life—an entire civilisation—lies just outside the pale of common thought. Cities and countries, inhabitants, intelligences, culture—an entire civilisation. Except by illustrations drawn from familiar things, there is no way of indicating a new idea. I do not mean actual cities, actual civilisation. Such life is different from any ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... Back of the North Wind we stand with one foot in fairyland and one on common earth. The story is thoroughly original, full of fancy ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... the upper river country which lies just west of the great Llano Estacado. Among those lonely hills the badness of the whole frontier had crystallized that year. Outlaw and murderer, renegade, rustler, and common horse-thief—all for whom the eastern trails had been growing too hot—had ridden into this haven beyond the range of the boldest sheriff until even the vigilance committee could not function here for the simple reason ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... aright one must have them in perspective. As the Celt remarked, "You can get the best view of your life after you're dead." Looking back on the performances of this period, I myself am amazed at their monstrous audacity. Remote from common experience, their extravagance suggests unreality. Here were the master of the greatest business the world has ever known, and I, a mere captain of his forces, without even a by-your-leave, calmly carving ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... criticized' (you know, he's told to be quite frank) 'for taking no steps about his marriage. From enquiries among the entourage of the Princess Flavia, her Royal Highness is believed to be deeply offended by the remissness of his Majesty. The common people are coupling her name with that of the Duke of Strelsau, and the duke gains much popularity from the suggestion.' I have caused the announcement that the King gives a ball tonight in honour of the princess to be widely diffused, and the ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... could doubt that it is a useful thing for SUCH minds to have the ascendancy for a time? It would be an error to consider the highly developed and independently soaring minds as specially qualified for determining and collecting many little common facts, and deducing conclusions from them; as exceptions, they are rather from the first in no very favourable position towards those who are "the rules." After all, they have more to do than merely to perceive:—in effect, they have to BE something new, they have to ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... found them to be a part of the Saskatchewan brigade, on its way to the common point of rendezvous, York Factory. It was in charge of two friends of mine; so I accosted them, without introducing myself, and chatted for some time about the occurrences of the voyage. They appeared ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... dimension when she spoke.... All the time he had been foolish, he knew, and, worse, looked like a fool, but some strange magic of her voice made it seem natural ... the naive brave gestures.... One levitated above common ground.... Even this moon-madness did not seem trivial and a thing for laughter.... A dignity of ancient stories was on it.... The blue Irish hills, soft as down, the little moon, and the tide hurrying ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... the navigators of the south seas understand places selected by various sea-fowls, where they in common build their nests, lay their eggs, and bring up their young. Here they assemble in immense masses, and in the laying out and construction of these places, exhibit ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... and learn of me.' Their intent is, 'Take the other end of my yoke, doing as I do, being as I am.' Think of it a moment:—to walk in the same yoke with the Son of Man, doing the same labour with him, and having the same feeling common to him and us! This, and nothing else, is offered the man who would have rest to his soul; is required of the man who would know the Father; is by the Lord pressed upon him to whom he would give the same peace which pervades and sustains ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... sensations, he crossed back to the table, and sinking into the chair beside it, endeavoured to call up his common sense, or at least shake himself free from the glamour which had seized him. But this especial sort of glamour is not so easily shaken off. Minutes passed—an hour, and little else filled his thoughts than the position of this bewitching girl and the claims she had ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... Billy observed as he sampled his second course appreciatively, "is common or barnyard flounder,—and the shrimp and the oyster crab, and that mushroom of the sea, and the other little creature in the corner of my plate who shall be nameless, because I have no idea what his name is,—are all put in to ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... deceived by show! Dost thou not blindly follow the opinion of the prince, be he severe, arbitrary, or just? Thy censure and thy praise equally originate in common report. In Magdeburg I lay, chained to the wall, ten years, sighing in wretchedness, every calamity of hunger, cold, nakedness, and contempt. And wherefore? Because the King, deceived by slanderers, pronounced me worthy of punishment. Because a wise King mistook me, and treated ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... contrast to the argument of Hobbes, pre-eminently social in character. There may be war or violence; but that is only when men have abandoned the rule of reason which is integral to their character. But the state of nature is not a civil State. There is no common superior to enforce the law of nature. Each man, as best he may, works out his own interpretation of it. But because the intelligences of men are different there is an inconvenient variety in the conceptions of justice. The result ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... occupants of the room, of whom he was the central, commanding figure. The head nurse held the lamp carelessly, resting her hand over one hip thrown out, her figure drooping into an ungainly pose. She gazed at the surgeon steadily, as if puzzled at his intense preoccupation over the common case of a man "shot in a row." Her eyes travelled over the surgeon's neat-fitting evening dress, which was so bizarre here in the dingy receiving room, redolent of bloody tasks. Evidently he had been out to some dinner or party, and when the injured man was brought in had merely donned his rumpled ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... that, Bleema! Hush that, while I can hold myself in. That I should live to hear my child make herself common over a loafer—" ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... so," says Miss Priscilla, doubtfully, "but there's a common cast about it. It reminds me of groundsel. Corney, whatever ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... need for you to get angry, mother!" Hsueeh P'an rejoined, "nor for you sister either; for from this day, I shan't any more make common cause with them nor drink wine or gad about. What ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... The common practice in heating allows the temperature to rise until the small white sparks are seen to come from the fire. Any heating above this point will surely result in burning that will ruin the iron or steel being handled. The best welding heat can be discerned by the appearance ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly

... dissipated life that their hope rested. On gray mornings when the jests of the night before had shrunk to ribaldries without wit or dignity, they could, after a fashion, bring out this batch of common hopes and count them over, then smile at each other and repeat, by way of clinching the matter, the terse yet sincere Nietzscheanism of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... hogshead, then put two bushels of elder-berries pickt from the stalks into a pot or earthen pan, and set it in a pot of boiling water till the berries swell, then strain it out and put the juice into the guile-fat, and beat it often in, and so order it as the common way ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... to make Dinah feel herself dependent on him, kept her in a state of constant intoxication by incessant amusement. These circumstances hindered two persons so clever as these were from avoiding the slough into which they fell—that of a life in common, a piece of folly of which, unfortunately, many instances may be seen in Paris ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... institution of a new form of common office for confessors and for virgins to facilitate the lessening of the number of feasts of saints, without diminishing the honour due to them (Burton and Myers, ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... The common mixture of much reflective morality in theory with much light-hearted immorality in practice, never entered so largely into manners. We have constantly to wonder how they analysed and defined the word Virtue, to which they so ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... growing idea getting the better of our common sense—an impression that there has been some sort of mistake somewhere or other. For, how can it be possible that we are just outside the harbour of a considerable city, with the shores of mainland and island as far as we can see, just as wild as Nature made ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... that appeared to be very near him. It exactly resembled the barking of a fox—a sound with which Caspar was familiar, having often heard foxes bark in his native country. The bark, however, appeared to him to be louder and more distinct than that of a common fox. ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... for he was honest, liberal, and sensible. He was not, however, an orator, although he subsequently became a great debater. I have often heard him speak, both in and out of Parliament; but I was never much impressed, or even interested. He had that hesitating utterance so common with aristocratic speakers, both clerical and lay, and which I believe is often assumed. In short, he had no magnetism, without which no public speaker can interest an ordinary audience; but he had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... leaders, open-handed without being generous, as revolutionary, as selfish, and as intellectually snobbish as was proper to their years, and inclined to be jealous one of the other, but linked together by common tastes and by a deep and bitter distaste for their father's newspapers, which were many, and for their mother's novels, which were more. These were, indeed, not fit for perusal at Somerville and Balliol. The danger had been that Somerville ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... British squadron returning from the Baltic, he unburdened himself in more explicit fashion: "Es ist ein Verbrechen gegen das Deutschtum" ("It is a crime against Germanity"). By this he probably meant that Germany, feeling her own interests assailed by the Serajevo crime, would make common cause with Austria to exact a full retribution. With more self-control than usual, however, he abstained from all further public ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... was to focus her college studies on a business training. Bookkeeping, shorthand, and exact methods were selected for specialization; and when at the age of twenty Belle was graduated and went home to Cedar Mountain, she had, in addition to her native common sense, a disciplined attention that made her at once a power in the circle of the church. It was her own idea to take a business position at once. Her mother was absolutely opposed to it. "Why should her child be sent to work? Were they not able to keep her at ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... years. He was certainly entitled to the freedom of the ocean, if intimate acquaintance with every fathom of its depth and breadth could establish a claim. It rather surprised me, afterwards, to see such science and experience yield so easily to the common weakness of seafaring humanity. Mr. Field told me that throughout the fearful weather to which the Niagara and Agamemnon were exposed, on their first attempt to lay down the cable, he never once felt a sensation of nausea; ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... suddenly I saw on a chair behind the door the identical hat I was thinking about! I sat up and looked at it. It must have been there all the time I was eating my tea. I still sat and looked. I felt vaguely uncomfortable for a moment, then my common sense asserted itself and told me that Delle Josephine must have been altering it or something of that kind and had forgotten to take it away. I wondered if she sat in my room when I was away. I had rather she did not. Just as I was about to rise and look ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... meteorological phenomena, it obliged us to be sometimes the witnesses of painful scenes during the day. A part of the great square is surrounded with arcades, above which is one of those long wooden galleries, common in warm countries. This was the place where slaves, brought from the coast of Africa, were sold. Of all the European governments Denmark was the first, and for a long time the only power, which abolished the traffic; yet notwithstanding ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... Adele was subject of common talk in the village, and the sympathy was very great. On the following night Adele was far worse, and the Doctor, at about his usual bedtime, went out to summon the physician. At a glance he saw in the shadow of the opposite houses the same figure pacing up and down. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... the grandeur of the soul believe, And only in the Infinite are free? Without thee I were naked, bleak, and bare As yon dead cedar on the sea-cliff's brow; And Nature's teachings, which come to me now, Common and beautiful as light and air, Would be as fruitless as a stream which still Slips through the wheel of some ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... across the gangway, he ordered her back, for the royal yacht was now coming up. 'Stop where you are, Sally!' he shouted out from the poop. 'Stop, Sally, stop!' bawling out the words so loudly that you could have heard him in Common Hard, for he had a powerful pair of lungs had Old Charley, and could raise his voice above a gale. Almost in the same breath, too, he sang out to the wives and friends of the sailors who had come out from Portsmouth to wish them good-bye, 'Now, all you ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... it is no less true, that there is almost as great a difference between the fiscal laws and governments of the various Australian Colonies as between those of foreign States in Europe—the only thing in common being the language and the money of the British Empire. Although however, they agree to differ amongst themselves, there can be no doubt of the loyalty of the group, as a whole, to their parent nation. I shall go no further into this matter, as, although ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... viceroy of Spain, the Prince of Peace—belongs to the latter class. From a man in the ranks of the guards he was promoted to a general-in-chief, and from a harp player in antechambers to a president of the councils of a Prince; and that within the short period of six years. Such a fortune is not common; but to be absolutely without capacity as well as virtue, genius as well as good breeding, and, nevertheless, to continue in an elevation so little merited, and in a place formerly so subject to changes and so unstable, is a ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... said Hilland, laughing; "you had nothing in common. You talked to a girl as if she were a mile off, and often broached topics that were cycles away. Now, a girl likes a fellow to come reasonably close—metaphorically, if not actually—when he chats with her. Moreover, many that you met, if they had brains, had never cultivated them. They were ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... conceded much to Russia in the way of the Amur, showed no inclination to make further concessions in the matter of the Usuri. She was persuaded to agree, however, that the region should be regarded as common property, pending a convenient opportunity for clear delimitation. That opportunity soon came. Seizing the moment (1860) when China had been beaten to her knees by England and France, Russia secured the final cession of the Usuri region, which then became the Maritime Province of Siberia. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... [19] The common use of the expression musica celestial to denote "nonsense, something not worth listening to," lends it a satirical byplay which disappears ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... brilliant scintillations of the former, or the garrulity of the latter, may amuse or delight you for the time being, yet you will derive no permanent satisfaction from these qualities, for there will be no common bond of kindred feeling to assimilate your souls and hold each spell-bound at the shrine of the other's intellectual or ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... and the world must look for a reformation, in this respect. Whatever ladies in the wealthier classes decide shall be fashionable, will be followed by all the rest; but, while they persist in the aristocratic habits, now so common, and bring up their daughters to feel as if labor was degrading and unbecoming, the evils pointed out will never find a remedy. It is, therefore, the peculiar duty of ladies, who have wealth, to set a proper example, in this particular, and make it their first aim to secure a strong ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... took it. That was the Dick that man and Harvey and America made, father, but I saw the Dick that God made!" He stopped and cried out passionately, "And some day, some day all the world must know this man—this great-souled, common American—that ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... — It's only with a common week-day kind of a murderer them lads would be trusting their carcase, and that man should be a great ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge

... scent, and the hounds shot across the Fleecyhaughwater Meadows, over the hill, to the village of Berrington Roothings, where, the fox having been chased by a cur, the hounds were brought to a check on some very bad scenting-ground, on the common, a little to the left of the village, at the end of a quarter of an hour or so. The road having been handy, the hard riders were there almost as soon as the soft ones; and there being no impediments on the common, they all pushed boldly on among ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... into the arid region of her countenance. A feeling of compunction swept over me. Was it possible that this poor simple girl concealed depths of conviviality in her nature and a genial disposition which I, in common with all her former employers, had carelessly overlooked? I will admit that this unexpected phase in Elizabeth's character touched ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various

... too far above the common run of human nature," said one observer. "I should not be surprised if her spirit were already pluming its wings for a heavenly flight. Such natures ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... below the surface of things, however, and in trifles he invariably discovered more than the ordinary man. Before Maynard had fairly outlined the case Nick keenly discerned that the robbery could not have been committed by any common criminals, and he at once decided not only that he would take the case, but also that it gave promise of something far more startling than then ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter

... Furtively they flitted from face to face in those rows of faces at the walls. But whatever he thought or hoped to find—fleeting flash of support or encouragement—was hidden behind a common mask of astonishment as blank as had been his own. They were waiting for his answer; he knew they were waiting for that as he crossed to the door. And when he paused there, to turn in sudden savagery, he realized that his tardiness ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... claims, is not common to all animals, since the lowest forms, like plants, are entirely passive under the influences of the surrounding medium; they have no ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... and in leaving AEneas consequently to sustain the shock of the contest with Turnus and his Rutulians alone. It would naturally be supposed that the alliance between Latinus and AEneas would not be very favorably regarded by the common people of Latium. They would, on the other hand, naturally look with much jealousy and distrust on a company of foreign intruders, admitted by what they would be very likely to consider the capricious partiality of their king, to a share of their country. This jealousy and distrust was, for a ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... that so extraordinary a visit produced a considerable impression on the mind of the young surgeon; and that he speculated a great deal and to very little purpose on the possible circumstances of the case. In common with the generality of people, he had often heard and read of singular instances, in which a presentiment of death, at a particular day, or even minute, had been entertained and realised. At one moment he was inclined to think that the present might be such a case; ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the produce of his lands; it was all needed for domestic consumption. Indeed, for gormandizing, I would have matched him against any three common-council ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... common names (anything but proper ones) are the eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their share; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... She usually spoke in common German, but when in a state of ecstasy, her language became much purer, and her narrations partook at once of child-like simplicity and dignified inspiration. Her friend wrote down all that she had said, directly he returned ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... Parliament, the various elements of the social state adhered to one side or the other, according to their natural predilections. The Episcopalians generally joined the king, the Presbyterians the Parliament. The gentry and the nobility favored the king; the mechanics, artisans, merchants, and common people the Parliament. The rural districts of country, which were under the control of the great landlords, the king; the cities and towns, the Parliament. The gay, and fashionable, and worldly, the king; the serious-minded and austere, the Parliament. Thus every thing was divided. ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... republican government, resting solely upon the will of the people, there is no occasion for the warning of the President. Unless the judgment of one man is better than the combined judgment of a great majority, he should have respected their decision, and not continue a controversy in which our common constituency have decided that ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... other passions, for the arms Of death are stretched you-ward, and he claims You as his bride. Maybe my soul misnames Its passion; love perhaps it is not, yet To see you fading like a violet, Or some sweet thought away, would be a strange And costly pleasure, far beyond the range Of common man's emotion. Listen, I Will choose a country spot where fields of rye And wheat extend in waving yellow plains, Broken with wooded hills and leafy lanes, To pass our honeymoon; a cottage where ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... The common black ink of the ancients was essentially different in composition and less liable to fade than those used at the present time. It was not a stain like ours, and when ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... Cunningham's Handbook of London, art. Goldsmiths' Hall, and for some account of the Bowes family, which intermarried with that of D'Ewes, see Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ii. 17, 18. It seems to have been a rather common practice formerly to engrave figures of Saints, representations of the Passion, &c. on the bottom of drinking cups.—See Rowlands' Knave of Clubbs, 1600. (Percy Soc. repr. ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown

... child of her father. The secretiveness, the concentrated will, the unfettered individuality of spirit, which protected its own defiant isolation at all costs, the subtlety, the ability to seek sanctuary in indefinitely maintained silence, these were their traits in common. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... real working-out kind of proposal is not so common in New York as, judging from the population, one might suppose. Ethel began to advise Nelson against spending so much money foolishly. For a while her objections to his "friendship" were overruled; but finally she got desperate and candidly told the Canuck he was up against ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... every Christian and humane man, was to the German something to be destroyed root and branch. They lived in different worlds, worshipped a different God. Christianity was not the same thing to them as to us. We had no common ground on which to meet. He understood now why the Hague Conference was a failure. Germany had made it a failure. What other nations longed for, ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... life again,—hard, cold, inexorable life, knocking with business-like sound at the mourner's door, obtruding its common-place pertinacity on the dull ear of sorrow. The world cannot wait for us; the world knows no leisure for tears; it moves onward, and drags along with its motion the weary and heavy-laden who would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... matter what our difference of breed, of training, of experience and education, provided we could meet and exchange ideas honestly there would be some satisfying point of mental fusion where we would feel our solidarity in the common mystery of life. People complain that wars are caused by and fought over trivial things. Why, of course! For it is only in trivial matters that people differ: in the deep realities they must necessarily ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... indifferent about it, Mary, you will not refuse to let me couple your name with mine when I ask him to come down. That would be nothing more than common politeness, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... another, overseeing us at our various employments. I never saw in her any appearance of timidity: she seemed, on the contrary, bold and masculine, and sometimes much more than that, cruel and cold- blooded, in scenes calculated to overcome any common person. Such a character she had exhibited at ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... excited or impressed by the honour of polishing the monumental floors of the Palais Mazarin, and still shoved about the table, papers, and numberless refaits of the Permanent Secretary with the calm superiority of a citizen of Riom over a common fellow from 'Chauvagnat.' Astier-Rehu, secretly uncomfortable under this crushing contempt, sometimes tried to make the savage feel the dignity of the place upon which his wax-cake was operating. 'Teyssedre,' said he to him, one ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... do you come, fair sir? We should know your name,— POETS are not so common!" This with an ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... there. It will be easier for you to resist temptation, I suppose, if there isn't any audience. Audiences are nuisances. Men have killed each other because they feared the crowd might mistake common sense for the ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... meet certain persons without saying, "I know that face; I have seen it somewhere, before;" because it has no individuality, but simply resembles faces seen in a common crowd. It is precisely so with the minds of certain other people. When they speak, you know exactly what they are going to say; you have heard the same thing so many times already from them, you know all their ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... indeed had conducted scores of affairs for his acquaintances with the greatest prudence and skill. His Royal Highness the late lamented Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest regard for Macmurdo on this account, and he was the common refuge of gentlemen ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... tears, and the heart of Donal gave a leap for joy. Common as tears are, fall as they may for the foolishest things, they may yet be such as to cause joy in paradise. The man himself may not know why he weeps, and his tears yet indicate his turning on his road. The earl was as far from ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... all men that on account of our childhoods—thou being five, and I but three years of age—we can undertake nothing without the counsel of our friends and other good men. Now I and my men think that we stand nearer to the danger and necessity common to us both, than thou and thy friends; therefore make it so that thou, as soon as possible, come to me, and as strong in troops as possible, that we may be assembled to meet whatever may come. He will be our best friend who does all he can that we may be united, and may ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... the fact of personification lies the fact that the emotion is felt collectively, the rite is performed by a band or chorus who dance together with a common leader. Round that leader the emotion centres. When there is an act of Carrying-out or Bringing-in he either is himself the puppet or he carries it. Emotion is of the whole band; drama—doing—tends to focus on the leader. This leader, this focus, is then remembered, thought of, imaged; from ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... that had fallen was not deep enough to offer the slightest obstruction to their advance. It was, indeed, only one of those occasional showers common to that part of the country in the late autumn, which season had now crept upon Dick almost before he was aware of it, and he fully expected that it would melt away in a few days. In this hope he kept steadily advancing, until he ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... principal in the Holy Temple, to do His work therein, . . . their name, their garb, and work, did so intoxicate and bewitch me." If it is questionable whether the Act forbidding the use of the Book of Common Prayer was strictly observed at Elstow, it is certain that the prohibition of Sunday sports was not. Bunyan's narrative shows that the aspect of a village green in Bedfordshire during the Protectorate did not differ much from what Baxter tells us it had been in Shropshire before the civil troubles ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... now roads. When it is said hereafter that Gen. Marion crossed a river, for instance the Santee, it is not to be understood that he stopped, like Caesar at the Rhine, to build a bridge over it; or that he was provided with the convenient modern apparatus of pontoons, or oftentimes with a common flat; even the last would have been too slow for the usual rapidity of his motions. He seldom waited for more than a single canoe, along side of which his sorrel horse Ball,* was usually led into the river, and he floated over like an amphibious animal. The ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... world, or, at least, of that part of it with which any one man is acquainted. I was sitting on the upper deck of the steamer, gazing at Etna, as its snow-shrouded peak was revealed in the brilliant moonlight, when a chance fellow-traveller began to talk about the coincidences so common in foreign travel. I told him that one of my strangest experiences of the kind was the following. In the previous September I was staying at the Hotel Belle Vue at The Hague, and after dinner one evening went into the reading room to get a peep at the Times. A pleasant-looking elderly gentleman ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... KUMARATUNGA (since 12 November 1994); note - Ratnasiri WICKRAMANAYAKE (since 10 August 2000) is the prime minister; in Sri Lanka the president is considered to be both the chief of state and the head of the government, this is in contrast to the more common practice of dividing the roles between the president and the prime minister ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... than one way." I knew without his telling it that he alluded to their common misfortune of being both unhappily married. His mother, a woman of more force than the other, ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... naturalists ex professo, to reflect, that, as commonly employed, the term has a double sense and denotes two very different orders of relations. When we call a group of animals, or of plants, a species, we may imply thereby either, that all these animals or plants have some common peculiarity of form or structure; or, we may mean that they possess some common functional character. That part of biological science which deals with form and structure is called Morphology—that which concerns itself with function, Physiology—so ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... The Abdalli chiefs, on the other hand, made an effort to induce the Sultan of the Futhalis, (with whom they held a conference during the first days of 1839, at the tomb of Sheikh Othman near Aden, on the occasion of the payment of the annual tribute above referred to,) to make common cause with them against the intruders who were endeavouring to establish themselves in the country; but the negotiation wholly failed, and the two parties separated on not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... more common diseases. The following are some of the more common diseases caught by breathing in the germs: Colds, diphtheria, tonsilitis, grippe, scarlet ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... hiding place at the ends of the earth, from guarding the persons of Emperors and Kings to preventing a Whitechapel bully from knocking his wife about. The work must go on smoothly, silently, every department harmonising, every man working in one common effort. ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... apt retort, and not at all flippant as it may seem at first. It is based on the belief suggested by common sense and confirmed by Scripture that our life there will be the natural continuous development of our life here and not some utterly unconnected existence. If consciousness, personal identity, character, love, memory, fellowship, intercourse go on in that life why should there be a question ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... venture. He had succeeded in forming another mighty coalition against the French ascendency. The united forces of Austria, Russia, and England might, he hoped, oppose an insurmountable barrier to the ambition of the common enemy. But the genius and energy of Napoleon prevailed. While the English troops were preparing to embark for Germany, while the Russian troops were slowly coming up from Poland, he, with rapidity unprecedented in modern war, moved a hundred thousand men from the shores of the Ocean ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was, indeed, sufficiently offensive; and, June 16, an order was issued to seize Milton's Defence, and Goodwin's Obstructers of Justice, another book of the same tendency, and burn them by the common hangman. The attorney-general was ordered to prosecute the authors; but Milton was not seized, nor, perhaps, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... quivering with every fresh token of his preference for another! That other, too, one so infinitely more worthy of him than herself; so that she could not have even the poor comfort of thinking that he had no discrimination, and was throwing himself away on a common or worthless person. Ruth was beautiful, gentle, good, and conscientious. The hot colour flushed up into Jemima's sallow face as she became aware that, even while she acknowledged these excellences on Mrs Denbigh's part, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... home, disturb and shake the credit of their public loans, impair the strength and resources of their navy, disconcert their extensive and dangerous operations of war, and, finally, give life, strength, and lustre to the common cause and his majesty's arms. The board of inquiry took next into consideration the several letters and explanatory instructions sent to sir John Mordaunt, in consequence of some difficulties which might ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... or not, and believe everything he says and make the magistrate set the prisoner free. Do you remember that your father established rules in the twenty-fourth year of Kwang Hsu, how the Chinese officials should treat the Bishops whenever they had dealings with each other? I know the common class of people become Christians—also those who are in trouble—but I don't believe that any of the high officials are Christians." Her Majesty looked around and whispered: "Kang Yue Wai (the reformer in ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling

... printer errors have been corrected. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. The following less common diacritical marks have ...
— Alphabetical Vocabularies of the Clallum and Lummi • George Gibbs

... man to drive the negro into this long continued and excessive muscular exertions such as the white laborers of Europe often impose upon themselves to satisfy a greedy boss, under fear of losing their places, and thereby starving themselves and families. Throughout England, nothing is more common than decrepitude, premature old age, and a frightful list of diseases, caused by long continued and excessive muscular exertion. Whereas, all America can scarcely furnish an example of the kind among ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... fitting in the top of the mud oven, and a kind of sweetened bread made up with our supply of sugar brought from Hami. This we nicknamed our "Gobi cake," although it did taste rather strongly of brackish water and the garlic of previous contents of the one common cooking-pot. We would usually take a large supply for road use on the following day, or, as sometimes proved, for the midnight meal of the half-starved inn-dog. The interim between the evening meal and bedtime was always employed in writing notes by the feeble, flickering ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... to the hairs or filaments (about which I once spoke) within different parts of flowers, I have a splendid Tacsonia with perfectly pendent flowers, and there is only a microscopical vestige of the corona of coloured filaments; whilst in most common passion-flowers the flowers stand upright, and there is the splendid corona which apparently would catch pollen. (701/4. Sprengel ("Entdeckte Geheimniss," page 164) imagined that the crown of the Passion-flower served as a nectar-guide ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... Parent got his Coin by wrecking a Building Association in Chicago, then announced that they were Gentlemen, and could Pay for everything they broke. Thus it will be seen that they were Rollicking College Boys and not Common Rowdies. ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... crossed the Meuse at the head of one hundred thousand men, and soon gained possession of most of the chief places of Flanders. An unusually severe winter was setting in; but a circumstance which in common cases retards the operations of war was, in the present instance, the means of hurrying on the conquest on which the French general was bent. The arms of the sea, which had hitherto been the best defences ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... themselves, or from the clergy, who are well aware of their own weakness. It is scarcely necessary to remark that every country which has been long subjected to the sway of popery is in a state of great and deplorable ignorance. Spain, as might have been expected, has not escaped this common fate, and the greatest obstacle to the diffusion of the Gospel light amongst the Spaniards would proceed from the great want of education amongst them. Perhaps there are no people in the world to whom nature has been, as far as regards mental endowments, more bounteously liberal ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... Indeed, it's not for my own comfort only, but much more largely for his that I am so much concerned. Surely we can meet on the common ground of his welfare ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... distinguish between the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit: by the Spirit, the apostle meant the vital principle of new life from God, common to all believers—the animating Spirit of the Church of God; by the gifts of the Spirit, he meant the diversities of form in which He operates on individuals; its influence varied according to their respective ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... democracy in Princeton University, he declared: "The great voice of America does not come from seats of learning. It comes in a murmur from the hills and woods, and the farms and factories and the mills, rolling on and gaining volume until it comes to us from the homes of common men. Do these murmurs echo in the corridors of our universities? I have not heard them." A clarion call to the spirit that now moves America. Still later he shouted: "I will not cry peace so long as social injustice and political wrong exist in the state of New Jersey." Here is the very soul ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... constantly in mind, Godwin Peak must of necessity do so after what had passed between them. Had but her discovery remained her own secret, then the pleasure of commanding her less pure emotions, of proving to Godwin that she was above the weakness of common women, might easily have prevailed. Now that her knowledge was shared by others, she had lost that safeguard against lower motive. The argument that to unmask hypocrisy was in itself laudable she dismissed with contempt; let ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... affected him most was his sense of the overwhelming magnitude of the powers which had made him their puppet; of the utter futility of the efforts that he or any other man could make against them. They were like elemental, cosmic forces; they held all the world in their grip, and a common man was as much at their mercy as a bit of ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... guilds, like those of Europe in ancient times, with rules and regulations as strict as those of modern trades unions. The nagar-seth, or Lord Mayor, of Ahmedabad, is the titular head of all the guilds, and presides over a central council which has jurisdiction of matters of common interest. But each of the trades has its own organization and officers. Membership is hereditary; for in India, as in all oriental countries, it is customary for children to follow the trade or profession of their ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... at the end of the table stood up, shaking with rage. "Listen to him!" he cried to the others. "Once again he is defending this creature and turning his back on common sense. All I ask is that we keep our skills among our own people and avoid the contamination ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... at five,' said Wardle. 'Now, Joe!' And Joe having been at length awakened, the two friends departed in Mr. Wardle's carriage, which in common humanity had a dickey behind for the fat boy, who, if there had been a footboard instead, would have rolled off and killed himself in his very ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... treaties. He complained that the French soldiers and sailors underwent the harshest treatment in the British isles, exceeding those bounds which are prescribed to the most rigorous rights of war, by the law of nature, and common humanity. He affirmed, that while the English ministry, under the appearance of sincerity, imposed upon the French ambassador with false protestations, others diametrically opposite to these deceitful assurances of a speedy accommodation were actually carrying into execution in North America; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... clean-shaven face, large dark eyes, and dark hair which covered the head in short curls of almost African profusion. But a second glance revealed all the characteristics that give the hand-to-hand touch with the common people, without which no man can hope to lead ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... out his torch, turned in the direction of the door at the back of the temple. It was unbolted as before, and the thought stirred faintly in him that it was slightly open, though only by a crack. The more he thought of it, however, the more certain he grew that this was but one of the common illusions of light coming from a different angle. He studied in a more scientific spirit the details of the door, with its rusty bolts and hinges, when he became conscious of something very near him—indeed, nearly above his head. Something was dangling from the tree that was not a broken branch. ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... law. Proponents of the fad would do well to consider this: If a party to a labor dispute is compelled to invoke and obey a decision of arbitrators that decision must follow strictly the line of law; the smallest invasion of any constitutional, statutory or common-law right will enable him to upset the whole judgment No legislative body can establish a tribunal empowered to make and enforce illegal or extra legal decisions; for making and enforcing legal ones the tribunals that we already have are sufficient This talk of "compulsory arbitration" is the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... had risen to her cheek, but voice she had none, and for one moment she concealed her face on his shoulder. She withdrew not her hand from his, and Herbert felt—oh, how gratefully—that his love was returned; he had not hoped in vain. For some minutes they could not speak, every feeling was in common; together they had grown, together loved, and now that the magic word had been spoken, what need was there for reserve? none; and reserve was banished. No darkening clouds were then perceived; at that moment Mary thought not of her father, and if she did, could she believe ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... in the matter cannot be questioned, maintains that the Zwinglian doctrine is as explicitly rejected as the Romano-Lutheran; and that the language as well as the doctrine closely resembles Calvin's. The text of the common editions of the Confession speaks of two chief sacraments only as being appointed under the New Testament as well as under the Old. From this expression, some, who are more familiar with Anglican than with Calvinistic ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... them." "It is needless for me to tell you," answered Aristodemus, "that, if I believed the gods interested themselves in human affairs, I should not neglect to worship them." "How!" replied Socrates, "you do not believe the gods take care of men, they who have not only given to man, in common with other animals, the senses of seeing, hearing, and taste, but have also given him to walk upright; a privilege which no other animal can boast of, and which is of mighty use to him to look forward, to remote ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon

... be news to many. It has been quite common to include the Thugs with the worshippers of Bhavani, the consort of Siva. The word signifies a deceiver, which eliminates it from ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... dumb in the first instance; and anger kept me silent," continued the countess. "I know what I ought to have done. I know that I ought to have summoned the police and given the man in charge on the spot, as a common burglar and housebreaker: only you see I did not think of it at the time. I only rang the bell, and then, without waiting the arrival of my servant, I opened the door and pointed silently to it. He made no motion to go; on the contrary, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... too strongly possessed with our common habit of classifying writers into kinds, as historians, poets, scientific and speculative writers, and so on, it may seem strange to include Mr. Tennyson in this list. But as I have advisedly referred to Wordsworth as one of the representatives and powers of British philosophy ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... related to Mrs. Shand my amazing adventures of the previous night, my eyes furtively upon Phrida's countenance the while. Strangely enough, she betrayed no guilty knowledge, but fell to discussing the mystery with ease and common-sense calm. ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... that Church, which was represented of old by Gomarus and Witsius, by Voet and Marck, and Bernard de Moore, and whose Synod of Dort preceded in time, and pioneered in doctrine, our own Westminster Assembly. Like them, we love that Presbyterianism and that Calvinism which we hold in common, and we wish to carry them wherever we go; but we fear that it would not be doing justice to either, and that it might compromise that name which is above every other, if, on the shores of China, we were to unfurl a separate standard. ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage

... of the marrying-for-love kind, and if we had let her have her way where would she have been afterwards with her fifteen years as an invalid? And where would you have been by this time? No," said Aunt Bridget, bringing down her flat-iron with a still heavier bang, "a common-sense marriage, founded on suitability of position and property, and all that, is the only proper sort of match. And that's what's before you now, girl, so for goodness' sake don't go about like the parish pan, letting every busybody make mischief with you. My ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... many much humbler uses than these. Paper screws are employed in ornamental wood work, and if a hole is begun for such a screw, it will twist its way into soft wood as well as steel would do. Barrels of paper reinforced with wire are common. Gear wheels and belt pulleys are made of papier mache, and even the wheels of railroad coaches; at least the body of the wheels is made of it, although the tire, hub, and axle are of cast-steel. Circular saws of pulp are in use which cut ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... they arrived in Athens, amid a darkness which was confusing, and, after no more than the common amount of trouble, they procured carriages and were taken to the hotel. Mrs. Wainwright's impulses now dominated the others in the family. She had one passion after another. The majority of the servants in the hotel pretended ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... I, "we philosophers must give an occasional dip into the mystical, and say something apparently absurd for the purpose of explaining that we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives common people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear we come out of our apparent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... the artist, coldly. "It is a reminiscence of earlier and happier days. It was painted for my own satisfaction, and I shall keep it as long as I have a place to hang it in. It is a common mistake, sir, with our patrons, to suppose they can buy our souls ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... hash," he suggested, when she paused for a word, "where the prevailing flavour is the common onion of commerce! Now, I'll wager any sum that that is an invitation to some one you do ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... mind. They were dark postcards, encrusted with shiny frosting, like the snow outside. Little birds and goblins, a wreath of holly, and a house with red mica windows were designed on them. She put out a finger and gently touched the rough, bright, common stuff; standing opposite them, almost breathless with a wave of memory. She could see herself no taller than the nursery fireguard, with round eyes to which every bright thing was a desire. She could feel herself very small amid the bustle and clatter of Christmas, blowing dark breath marks against ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... the opportunity for carrying out the recommendation of a Select Committee in 1908 that there should be a common gallery for men ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... smeared with watery vapours fleeting, broken and mournful, from the west—these above me, as I stand by the old lichened gate of the high wind-swept field at the top of the wold. In front a stretch of rough common, the dark-brown heather, the young gorse, bluish-green, the rusty red of soaked bracken, the pale ochre-coloured grass, all blent into a rich tint that pleases the eye with its wild freshness. To the left, the wide flat level of the plain, with low hills rising on its verge; to the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson



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