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More "Preferable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pressed against the naked breast, and then twanging on the string with a small stick. About four notes can be extracted by a skilful player. The result is not cheerful, and to the civilised ear the strains of a Jew's harp are preferable. But the twanging eased the burthen of longing which Maliwe bore, and no lute-player in passionate Andalusia ever poured out his love in melody with more genuine feeling than did this savage ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... and through, but as the others filed out, every second one with a folded stretcher, he, also, followed. Yet he wanted to hold back; he wanted to dash into the darkest niche of the dug-out, bury his face there and—well, die! To die at once, outright, was preferable to the mental torture of expected laceration and suffering; nor could even the great Bonsecours have convinced him that these two monsters were not crouching, waiting especially for the moment when ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... It is preferable, then, to practice the construction of wholes rather than the making of exercises; and it is best at the beginning to study the different kinds of wholes, one at a time, rather than all together. No one would attempt to teach elimination by addition and subtraction, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... only tolerable thing in life is action, and action is feeble without youth. What if you do not obtain your immediate object?—you always think you will, and the detail of the adventure is full of rapture. And thus it is the blunders of youth are preferable to the triumphs of manhood, or the ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... girl, having been brought up to a very simple and natural conception of talk, thought no more about it, except that she would have liked so great a traveller to speak more generously. No doubt, after all, this reticence was preferable to self-revelation. Mr. Stocks had been her companion that morning in the drive to Etterick, and he had entertained her with a sketch of his future. He had declined, somewhat nervously, to talk of his early life, though the girl, with her innate love of a fighter, would ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... three of these classes would seem to refer to ornament only; the fourth to ornament, combined with utility, as in the case of trade marks; and the fifth to new shapes or forms of manufactured articles, which, for some reason, were preferable to those previously adopted. ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... their warfare upon the Christians, had to do with the conduct of those Mohammedan soldiers who went forth to do battle for the true faith. The Prophet promised that those who fell, facing the enemy, would go directly to Heaven. This made sudden death in the field preferable to a long but dreary existence upon this earth. It gave the Mohammedans an enormous advantage over the Crusaders who were in constant dread of a dark hereafter, and who stuck to the good things of this world as long as they ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... or row a boat alone to a point seven miles away and return again, or if conveyed by any vehicle or animal go a distance of fifteen miles and back and write a short report on it. It is preferable that he should take ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... your horse may think so too,' said my aunt; 'but at present he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there, as if he thought his stable preferable.' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... the taste of London honey and in that of the country? From the immense quantity of garden flowers about the metropolis it would seem possible for a distinct flavour, not perhaps preferable, to be imparted. Lavender, of which old housewives were so fond, and which is still the best of preservatives, comes next, and self-heal is just coming out in flower; the reapers have, I believe, forgotten its former use in curing the gashes sometimes inflicted ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... that the Pig Iron Review would be the best possible name. He is, however, a high tariff man, and his judgment may be influenced by that fact. Either of these latter names would unquestionably be preferable to PUNCHINELLO, but the name which I have suggested is the one ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... accepted and the country saved. But Graustark was loyal to its Princess. Not one of her citizens listened to the wily Prince, and more than one told him or his emissaries that the loss of the whole kingdom was preferable to the marriage he desired. The city sickened at ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... to promote another man's success at his own hazard, he sent deputies to Bocchus, entreating him "not to become an enemy to the Romans without cause;" and observing "that he had a fine opportunity of entering into friendship and alliance with them, which were far preferable to war; that though he might have confidence in his resources, he ought not to change certainties for uncertainties; that a war was easily begun, but discontinued with difficulty; that its commencement and conclusion ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... and detailed analysis of so many labours would throw us into numerous repetitions. A systematic order will be preferable; it will more distinctly fix the eminent place that Herschel will never cease to occupy in the small group of our contemporary men of genius, whilst his name will reecho to the most distant posterity. The variety ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... future Lady Tewett?" said Madame Max Goesler to her friend. "Why not? Sir Griffin can't hurt me. When one begins to be good-natured, why shouldn't one be good-natured all round?" Madame Max remarked that it might, perhaps, be preferable to put an end to good-nature altogether. "There I daresay you're right, my dear," said Lady Glencora. "I've long felt that making presents means nothing. Only if one has a lot of money and people like it, why shouldn't one? I've made so many to people I hardly ever saw that one more to Lady ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... beauties extremely well. They would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their bringing the barouche-landau; it will be so very much preferable. When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible; and Mr. Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King's-Weston twice last summer, in that way, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... to the spasmodic machine on which the indicator moves forward one hundred pounds every two minutes and leaves a person utterly uncertain as to whether he should immediately begin dieting or purchase a bottle of codliver oil. Yet even this mockery of a weighing-machine is preferable to the emotional type of scales which simultaneously gives you a false weight, tells your fortune in utter disregard of age and sex, and plays a tune that cannot be recognised. When such a machine has registered a German matron's weight at 115 pounds and informed her that she will some day be President ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... is much to unlearn in what one has picked up by the light of Nature. Scrambling down a run, crashing and sitting on one's Skis, may be great fun the first day, but is tiring and humiliating as time goes on. It is infinitely preferable to learn the knack of Ski-ing tidily, and thereby keeping dry and, in a few days, running well enough thoroughly to enjoy a day out with its slow climb to the top of some peak or pass, and then the slide ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... arrived, however, at these three Principles only at the close of my observations. They will be discussed in the present and two following chapters in a general manner. Facts observed both with man and the lower animals will here be made use of; but the latter facts are preferable, as less likely to deceive us. In the fourth and fifth chapters, I will describe the special expressions of some of the lower animals; and in the succeeding chapters those of man. Everyone will thus be able to judge for himself, how far my three principles throw light on the theory of ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... mentally. In either case the question should be stated clearly and to the point, so that the spirit may give a simple definite answer. Questions which may be answered by a simple "Yes" or "No" are of course preferable. If the spirit agrees to move the table, or else produce raps, as the alphabet is called over letter by letter, the communication and answers may of course be given in much fuller detail. In such case the spirit may be called ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... afterwards with the ice itself in the shape of a large field extending as far as the eye could reach from west to east. Here they got a supply of fresh meat in the shape of sea-horse, of which animal they killed a good many. The flesh was fishy and indifferent eating, but Cook says anything was preferable to salt meat. ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... establishments, and the positive presence of all that was wicked, cruel, and immoral, need we be surprised that occasional crimes of a dark and cruel character should be perpetrated? The truth is, that it is difficult to determine, whether unlettered ignorance itself were not preferable to the kind of education which the ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Hucbald and Guido. The combination of the faux bourdon and the remnant of the organum gives us the foundation for our modern tone system. The old rules, making plagal motion of the different voices preferable to parallel motion, and contrary motion preferable to either, still hold good in our works on theory; so also in regard to the rules forbidding consecutive fifths and octaves, leaving the question of ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... In the sense of value, it means value justly, not highly. In another and preferable sense it ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... he is worth. Those who are good at games get on, the others are far from being happy. A few gain admission to colleges, the rest are "unattached." Lodging-house existence at Oxford or Cambridge is preferable to that in London; but it does not assist to a knowledge of the English. Foreigners at the Universities take the trouble to try and know the Indian, and extend to him that friendship which the English undergraduate, through youthful lack of thought, withholds. The Imperial ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... was infinitely preferable to the narrow-minded and unfriendly intimacy of society in a country town with its snobbery and cliques. To be mistress of her own home and to be able to look after and mother her dearly-loved brother was a pleasant change from her position as ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... larger and more complex articles. He will soon be able to make aprons for himself and his sisters and mother. Toy sewing machines are now sold which are really useful playthings, and on which the child can manufacture a number of small articles. Those run by a treadle are preferable to those run by a hand crank, because they leave the child's hands ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... great frequency. At length two shrapnel shells burst quite close to us, and a ball from one of them hit the officer who was conducting us. We then turned round and changed our views with regard to the cupola—the fire of one side being bad enough, but preferable to that of both sides. A small boy of twelve years was riding with us at the time: this urchin took a diabolical interest in the bursting of the shells, and screamed with delight when he saw them take effect. I never saw this boy again, ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... Squire remarked that he should attend the funeral, and that I could go with him, if I liked, but that the others might be excused. I at once accepted the invitation; almost anything was preferable to hoeing corn in ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... destined me, being summoned, by the death of my father, into the country, I found myself master of an unexpected sum of money, and of an estate, which, though not large, was, in my opinion, sufficient to support me in a condition far preferable to the fatigue, dependance, and uncertainty of any gainful occupation. I therefore resolved to devote the rest of my life wholly to curiosity, and without any confinement of my excursions, or termination of my views, to wander ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... head such inexpressible evils, I have reason to believe that the wicked only have a right to happiness. If such be the order of things in this world, hurl me at once into hell. Its darkness is a thousand times preferable to the ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... or Opinion of mine, should be detracting from the Dignity of Moral Virtue, or have a Tendency to bring it into Disrepute, I can not see. I have already own'd, that it ever was and ever will be preferable to Vice, in the Opinion of all wise Men. But to call Virtue it self Eternal, can not be done without a strangely Figurative Way of Speaking. There is no Doubt, but all Mathematical Truths are Eternal, yet they ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... allow me," said Bertie, trying to disguise his extreme lameness. "I hope, having found my way here, I may be permitted to call again in this sociable manner, and have a little agreeable conversation, so preferable ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... ignorance. But for that professional pride that clings so powerfully to the young, he would have resigned at once, rather than take upon his conscience the solemn responsibility of life and death, as it lay before him in that fever-ward. But the ignorance that does nothing, is preferable to that which absolutely kills. The student had little confidence in himself, but he did not strangle nature with his presumption, and lacking deeper skill, made a kind nurse. He had learned how to watch the changes of this disease—an important thing to know—and gave little medicine, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Chester is so grateful about that song. It was her favourite song, too, and it seemed to bring them together, just as it opened my own soul to Wilbur. He says she sings the song very charmingly herself, and he thought it preferable that they be wed in Spokane before his father objected. And oh, aunty, I do see how blind I was to my destiny, and how kind you were to me in my blindness—you who had led the fuller life as I shall lead it ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... in the walks : they are straight, clay, and sided by common trees, without any rich foliage, or one beautiful opening. The meadows, and all the country around, are far preferable: yet here everybody meets. All the D'Oyley party came, and Miss ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... dessert appeared, and the company were not a little rejoiced to see plain olives in salt and water: butt what the master of the feast valued himself upon, was a sort of jelly, which he affirmed to be preferable to the hypotrimma of Hesychius, being a mixture of vinegar, pickle, and honey, boiled to proper consistence, and candied assafoetida, which he asserted, in contradiction to Aumelbergius and Lister, was no other than the laser Syriacum, so precious, as to be sold among the ancients to the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... to me, I felt, that, although far from agreeable to sojourn in such a place, even with Isabel, this would yet be greatly preferable to solitude. But to such a project, many serious difficulties presented themselves: I represented to Isabel, that if I did not reach the opposite tower that night, it would be discovered, when the food put into my cell remained untasted, that I was gone; and as the conclusion ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... mother gave him good advice on being raised from a private station to the lofty eminence of emperor, and that she told him that he was about to accept a heavy burden; but experience showed that he was unequal to it. Still, his shortcomings were preferable to a disputed succession. The earlier years of his reign were marked by some successes over the Tartars, and he received tribute from chiefs who had never paid it before. But Chitsong had little taste for the serious work of administration. He showed himself superstitious ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... than two inches in diameter should be painted either with a heavy lead paint, which is preferable, or with some gas tar preparation. These things do not in themselves heal a cut, but they keep out the decaying elements, air and moisture, thus helping to preserve the branch and by protecting it to promote healing in nature's ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... sail among these floating rocks (if I may be allowed to call them so) in a thick fog, this, however, is preferable to being entangled with immense fields of ice under the same circumstances. The great danger to be apprehended in this latter case, is the getting fast in the ice; a situation which would be exceedingly ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... the arrangement by subjects, on a predetermined system, which is so little to be recommended for great collections, often provides those who are composing monographs on their own account with a scheme of classification preferable to any other. But it will always be well to cultivate the mechanical habits of which professional compilers have learnt the value by experience: to write at the head of every slip its date, if there is occasion for it, and a heading[102] in any case; to ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... wagon, or perhaps by the round-up foreman, according to the needs of the case, the guards standing for two hours at a time from eight in the evening till four in the morning. The first and last watches were preferable, because sleep was not broken as in both of the other two. If things went well, the cattle would soon bed down and nothing further would occur until morning, when there was a repetition of the work, the wagon moving each day eight or ten miles to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... musical party given by M. Picot the banker, the celebrated cantatrice Grassini, who looked as beautiful as ever, and sung in the most fascinating style several airs, particularly "Quelle pupille tenere" in the opera of the Orazj e Curiazi. To my taste her style of singing is far preferable to that of Catalani; there is much more pathos and feeling in the singing of Grassini; it is completely and truly the "cantar che nell'anima si sente." Catalani is very powerful, wonderful, if you will, in execution; but she does not touch ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... not only from the United Kingdom and from France that war material and other goods were being conveyed by sea to Russia, but also from America; and it was infinitely preferable for these latter to take the easterly route to the northern ports of the empire, than for them to take the westerly route across the Pacific to Vladivostok, involving a subsequent journey of thousands of miles along a ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... judiciously does not recommend the gymnastic courses, because horse-riding, for persons of delicate constitutions, is preferable; he discovers too the reason why the ancients did not introduce this mode of exercise—it arose from the simple circumstance of their not knowing the use of stirrups, which was a later invention. Riding with the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... sanction and authority that the Government can possibly confer. While I believe the amount to be issued is greater than is necessary, yet in view of the retirement of bank notes I yielded my objections to the increase beyond $4,000,000. As an expedient to provide increased circulation it is far preferable to free coinage of silver or any proposition that has been made to provide some other security than United States bonds for bank circulation. I believe it will accomplish the first object proposed, a gradual and steady increase of the current money ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... a tightly-covered kettle, either tinned iron or porcelain-lined, holding not less than two gallons; three being a preferable size. Whether cooked or uncooked meat is used, it should be cut into small bits, and all bones broken or sawn into short pieces, that the marrow may be ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... often confronted with the problem of how best to handle certain cases. Will they do better under conditions where absolute quiet is enforced, or is it preferable to allow exercise at will? The temperament of the animal must be considered in such cases, and if a lame horse is too active and playful when given his freedom, exercise must be restricted or prevented, as the case may require. In cases of strains of tendons, during the acute stage, immobilization ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... so preferable to London, except so far as that she was there out of Selina's reach, that she began to have a kindness for it. She knew some of the poor people there, in whom Caroline had kept up an interest ever since Miss Cameron's time; the smoky streets ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... were sunk by a submarine or a mine, death in the strangling seas would be preferable to any more of this drifting among the strangling problems of a life that held no promise of happiness for her. She felt gagged with the silence imposed upon her by the code in the very face of Kedzie's disloyalty, a disloyalty so loathsome that seeing ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... sufficient to deposit upon the iron a film of copper, but it is necessary to the complete protection of the iron that it should have a considerably thick coating, and as the cyanide process is expensive, it is preferable when the iron has received a film of copper by the cyanide solution, to take it out, wash it in water, and attach to it a simple cell or weak battery, and put it into a solution of sulphate of copper. If there is any part ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... had secured the shelter offered by the solitary marquee and who, notwithstanding the irrespirable and filthy atmosphere, considered possible suffocation and the danger of fire to be preferable to the drenching rain, were confronted with a new and far ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... head-voice or the medium voice is preferable, it being more noble and more ample, and not fatiguing. In these voices there is far less danger of hoarseness. The head and medium voices proceed more from the mouth, while the chest-voice has its vibrating point in ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... said the stranger, with an unmoved countenance. "Goat! let us not deceive the Innocent! A scapegrace is one thing, a scapegoat is another, and from some points a preferable one. But the Innocent is abroad, I perceive. Innocent, I am the ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... hear that Canning has given way to the continued omission of the Queen from the Liturgy, as conceiving it preferable to an omission in the payment of his salary, and will continue the same cordial support to Castlereagh which ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... west of the northern end of the same street you will find windows in the Church of St. Patrice which I think infinitely preferable, of their kind, to those which are the especial pride of St. Vincent. They are very justly placed in the first class of the "monuments historiques" de France. As you enter the transept, turn due ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... other cases the Quarto is more correctly printed or from a better MS. than the Folio text, and therefore of higher authority. For example, in Midsummer Night's Dream, in Love's Labour's Lost, and in Richard the Second, the reading of the Quarto is almost always preferable to that of the Folio, and in Hamlet we have computed that the Folio, when it differs from the Quartos, differs for the worse in forty-seven places, while it differs for the ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... Aunt Pen; for that is preferable to staggering about the room with a partner who has no idea of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... dyed in the tub or vat, the pieces being drawn in and out by poles, but the results are not altogether satisfactory, (p. 042) and it is preferable to use machines for dyeing ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... was not acceptable to the man who was tired of life, and he at once addressed to his soul a series of remarks, couched in rhythmical language, in which he made it clear that, so far as he was concerned, death would be preferable to life. He begins by saying that his name is more detested than the smell of birds on a summer's day when the heavens are hot, and the smell of a handler of fish newly caught when the heavens are hot, and the smell of water-fowl in a bed of willows wherein geese collect, and the ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... you do see," interposed Adela, "that a select life is preferable to that higgledy-piggledy city-square existence so many poor ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they had come. That is all they ever saw of Sigmundskron. Twice in the year, also, Hilda and her mother were invited to stay a fortnight at Greifenstein, but no one would have supposed from their behaviour that the luxury of the latter place surprised them, or seemed in any way preferable to what they enjoyed at home. Hilda's education had not been neglected. Among her earliest recollections was her mother's constant injunction never to make remarks upon what she saw in other houses. The ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... small sailing vessel anchored in the bay; the captain consenting to take us on to Dulcigno. It was an Albanian boat, manned by about half a dozen cut-throats, and in spite of warnings we arranged to leave next day. Anything would be preferable to a ride of eight hours over mountain tracks on mules to Dulcigno; and we were all ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... The materials and needle must always be carefully chosen of a corresponding size. For common cross stitch and raised stitch Penelope canvas must be used; for small articles, such as slippers, bags, or borders, single Berlin wool is preferable; for larger ones fleecy wool or double Berlin wool (the latter, however, is much more expensive). For Gobelin stitch and tent stitch undivided canvas (not Penelope) is required. Purse silk is often used for the ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... impenetrable veil. Thunder echoes through the rocky caves with incessant reverberations, and rain settles down in a drenching flood. The chill of the wooden Hotel penetrates to the bone; enthusiasm wanes below zero, and even scorching Sourabaya appears preferable to this wet and windy refuge on the storm-swept heights. The hurricane proves brief in proportion to the violence displayed, and the walk to Poespo at dawn, behind the baggage-coolie, is a vision of delight. ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... effects of the reverse experienced at Saint-Quentin. "The loss of Calais," said Pope Paul IV., "will be the only dowry that the Queen of England will obtain from her marriage with Philip. For France such a conquest is preferable to that of half the kingdom of England." When Mary Tudor, already seriously ill, heard the news, she exclaimed from her deathbed, on the 20th of January, "If my heart is opened, there will be found graven upon it the word ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... said that life in Cuba, or in almost any old place was preferable to that at Eagle, with the long winter staring them in the face, and we could see that the poor fellow longed for home. We were quite touched, but tried to cheer ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... on which he rested, while he held himself in place by grasping the sapling itself, seemed to grow narrower and sharper, while his own weight increased, until he believed it would be preferable to let go and hang ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... naturally, fond of his own nation, and that he was inclined to enrich it and defend it at the expense of another, even, perhaps, of that to which he is indebted, for much higher degrees of greatness, wealth and power; for every thing which makes one state of life preferable to another; and which, therefore, if reason could prevail over prejudice, and every action were regulated by strict justice, might claim more regard than that corner of the earth in which he only ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... that you are tired of London. I am rather surprised to hear that, for I thought the Gaieties of the Metropolis were particularly pleasing to young ladies. For my part I detest it; the smoke and the noise feel particularly unpleasant; but however it is preferable to this horrid place, where I am oppressed with ennui, and have no amusement of any kind, except the conversation of my mother, which is sometimes very edifying, but not always very agreeable. There are very few books of any kind that are either instructive ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... necessary for the stability of the wall, it would be well to leave it untouched, as genuine old work, even though it may have suffered at the hand of time or of former generations, is, from a decorative point of view, infinitely preferable to any modern reproduction. There are two small windows in the west wall to light the wall passage to the clerestory, which is reached by a gallery running across the base of the north window. In the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... fire, that one suffers at the loss of sons, of wealth, of kinsmen, and relatives. That grief causes the limbs to burn and our wisdom to be destroyed. Overwhelmed with that grief, a person regards death to be preferable. This calamity that has overtaken me through ill-luck is even like that. It will not, I see, end except with life itself. O best of regenerate ones, I shall, therefore, put an end to my life this very day.' Having said these words unto his high-souled sire, that foremost of all persons ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... soldier; and until he was sixty years old the man belonged to the State absolutely. And all those years he ate his black broth at a public mess, seasoned only with fatigue and hunger. A witty Athenian said he did not wonder the Spartans were brave in battle, for death was preferable to their life. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Henry lavish on the shallow Queen, but which she could meet and requite in John. The brutal Boemond, the childish Malcolm, had aroused no feeling in her but dislike or pity, and to them a convent was infinitely preferable; but Bedford—the religious, manly, brave, unselfish Bedford—opened to her the view of all that could content a high-souled woman's heart, backed, moreover, by the wonder of having been the first ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him. In the interior of the country the accommodation is limited to an empty space on the floor, just large enough to spread a mattress upon. Whenever the state of the weather permitted I always preferred sleeping in the open air. Even on a rainy night a lodging on the outside of the door is preferable to the interior of the hut, where Indians, negroes, dogs and pigs are all huddled together. In these tambos there is seldom any scarcity of brandy or chicha; but the hungry traveller sometimes cannot get ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... resumed its empire even over the children. The host served out to us a soup made of lichen and by no means unpleasant, then an immense piece of dried fish floating in butter rancid with twenty years' keeping, and, therefore, according to Icelandic gastronomy, much preferable to fresh butter. Along with this, we had 'skye,' a sort of clotted milk, with biscuits, and a liquid prepared from juniper berries; for beverage we had a thin milk mixed with water, called in this country 'blanda.' It is not for me to decide whether this ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... me. Miss Warren remained at her piano, and it struck me as a little odd that she did not find the music of her lover's voice preferable, but I concluded that music was one of the strongest bonds of sympathy between them, and one of the means by which he had won her affection. Sometimes, as her voice rose clear and sweet to my open windows, I ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... community has grown to recognize as well-nigh normal. Both the present condition of the law and the present temper of juries render it a task of extreme difficulty to get at the real wrongdoer in any such case, especially by imprisonment. Yet it is from every standpoint far preferable to punish the prime offender by imprisonment rather than to fine the corporation, with ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... no means strength to encounter the ball-room. I gave my tickets to Mrs. and Miss Douglas. Mrs. Stainforth was dying to see the Princess Mary in her Court dress. Mr. Stanhope offered to conduct her to a place of prospect. She went with him. I thought this preferable to an unbroken evening with my fair companion, and Mr. de Luc, thinking the same, we both left Mrs. Schwellenberg to unattire, and followed. But we were rather in a scrape by trusting to Mr. Stanhope after all ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... constructed as a revereratory funace, which is easy to build and to work, but the hydrochloric acid given off here, being mixed with the products of the combustion of fuel, cannot be condensed to strong acid and is partly, if not entirely, wasted. It is, therefore, decidedly preferable to employ "muffle-furnaces'' in which the heating is performed from without, the fire-gases passing first over the arch and then under the bottom of the muffle. This requires more time and fuel than the work in "open'' furnaces, but in the muffles the gaseous ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... wolf is practically the only large animal that is able to hide successfully and survive in the treeless regions of the North; but his room is always preferable to his company, because he, too, is a destroyer of ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... flexible instruments with distinct edges. Finally, the contact and the repeated impression of the blows produced on the convulsionists the effect of a sort of salutary pounding, and rendered less poignant and less sensible the tortures of hysteria. It would have been preferable, doubtless, to make use of less murderous succors; the rage for distinction as the possessor of a miraculous gift, even more perhaps than the instinctive need of immediate relief, prompting these convulsionary theomaniacs to make ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... unknown as themselves) came to the resolution that the interest of America would not permit the naming of any person, not a citizen, to the office of Consul, or Agent, or Commissary. Native citizens, on several valuable accounts, are preferable to aliens, or citizens alien-born. Native citizens possess our language, know our laws, customs and commerce, have general acquaintance in the United States, give better satisfaction, and are ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... it went up the next ridge through the pine-forest. When it doubled round the Koche Fendue I said to myself, 'Ah, you accursed plague! If there was much game of your sort there would not be much sport; it would be preferable to work like a nigger!' So we all three arrive—the two tracks and I—at the top of the Schneeberg. There the wind had been blowing hard; the snow was knee-deep—but no matter! I must get on! I got to the edge of the torrent of the Steinbach, ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... underneath, and then below should be lettered the plays contained in each volume, and below that, at the foot, the date of publication. (4) Three weeks to a month at least should be allowed for the binding of such a work. (5) A folded copy in quires of a book is always preferable to a cloth-bound copy. (6) If a binder should ever suggest either a padded binding, a russia leather binding, or a tree calf binding, you may instantly leave his premises, for ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... Hence, a bloody persecution of the Protestants took place in all Catholic States. Their sufferings were unendurable. For a while they submitted to the cruel lash, but at last they resolved to defend the right of worshipping God according to their consciences. They armed themselves, for death seemed preferable to religious despotism. For more than fifty years after the death of Luther, Germany was the scene of commotions ending in a fiery persecution. At that time Germany was in advance of the rest of Europe in wealth and intelligence; the Protestants ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... admit that the nose is a most important, nay, a very prominent feature in female beauty. It is indispensible that a belle should have a beautiful nose; in fact, it is a question whether a woman without an eye would not be preferable to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... who approached their sphere (5). This, which I believe to be the true construction, is perhaps indicated quite as clearly by the pointing adopted in the text—a pointing moreover which, on metrical grounds, is, I think, preferable to that proposed by Mr. Bradley. I have added a dash to the comma after sphere (5), to indicate that it is Cythna herself (and not All who approached, etc.) that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the most unfavourable manner, producing extensive inflammations and suppurations on the hands; and as it clearly appears that this disease leaves the constitution in a state of perfect security from the infection of the Small-pox, may we not infer that a mode of Inoculation may be introduced preferable to that at present adopted, especially among those families, which, from previous circumstances we may judge to be predisposed to have the disease unfavourably? It is an excess in the number of pustules which we chiefly dread in the Small-pox; but, in the Cow-pox, no pustules appear, nor ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... treatment will be beneficial. Undoubtedly, the fall plowing of dry land is somewhat difficult, but the good results more than pay the farmer for his trouble. Late fall plowing, after the fall rains have softened the land, is preferable to spring plowing. If for any reason the farmer feels that he must practice spring plowing, he should do it as early as possible in the spring. Of course, it is inadvisable to plow the soil when it is so ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... despatched to chastise the headstrong Americans for their attempt to dispute with Great Britain the mastery of the ocean. Early in July, this force made its appearance off New York, and quickly made captures enough to convince the American merchantmen that a season in port was preferable to the dangers of the high seas in war-times. To this same fleet belongs the honor of the first capture of a war-vessel during the war; for the American brig "Nautilus," fourteen guns, was suddenly overhauled by the entire fleet, and captured after ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... proper here to remark the absurdity of joining in the same inscription Latin and English or verse and prose. If either language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue, and part in another on a tomb, more than in any other place, or any other occasion; and to tell all that can be conveniently told in verse, and then to call in ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... common practice. The women, indeed, usually entered the church at once, and the farmers' wives talked in an undertone to each other, over the tall pews, about their illnesses and the total failure of doctor's stuff, recommending dandelion-tea, and other home-made specifics, as far preferable—about the servants, and their growing exorbitance as to wages, whereas the quality of their services declined from year to year, and there was no girl nowadays to be trusted any further than you could see her—about the bad price Mr. Dingall, the Treddleston grocer, was giving ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... in this description of shuttle serves an important purpose other than that of seizing the upper thread loops, otherwise a very short beak would be preferable. It adds so much to the efficiency of the machine that a little further explanation of it appears essential. In the old fashioned machines the thread required to envelop the shuttle was dragged downward through the cloth, while the needle still ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... cotton. The result was to make bad worse, and to give, in that otherwise fine portrait, a feature at once poor and unlike Washington, and for this reason alone the Sharpless miniature, which in all else approximates so closely to Stuart's masterpiece, is preferable. In 1796 Washington was furnished with two sets of "sea-horse" (i.e., hippopotamus) ivory teeth, and they were so much better fitted that the distortion of the mouth ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... The prices then too were higher than now—the boxes a dollar and a quarter—the pit a dollar. And here we cannot help expressing a wish, founded we believe on justice and common sense, that admittance to the pit were raised:—first, because it is, at least, equal if not preferable to the boxes; and next because it would in some degree tend to exclude many who, though fit to sit only in the upper gallery, make their way into the pit to the great annoyance of those decent well behaved people who go to enjoy and understand ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... "A declared enemy is preferable to a treacherous ally," he observed dryly. "That man would never have kept faith ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... gar auto di on ta panta kai di ou ta panta pollous vious eis doxan agagonta ton archegon tes sotepias auton dia pethematon teleiosai. The English translators take agagonta as referring to the same person as auto, but it seems grammatically preferable to construe it as ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... shell. To our eye, its external appearance is more pleasing than that of the building we just left. The one central and four terminal towers, with their open, kiosk-like tops, are really graceful, and the slender spires which surmount them are preferable to the sham of sheet-iron turrets. Thanks, too, to the necessity of projecting an annex for hydraulic engines from one side of the middle, the building is distinguished by the possession of a front. The main cornice is forty feet in height upon the outside; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... summit tunnels in 1891, and to finish the tunnels in 1893. These tunnels will have to be excavated through hard rock. To this effect, it is intended to use drills actuated by electricity through dynamos driven by waterfalls. The Ferroux system seems preferable to the Brandt and other hydraulic systems, seeing the danger of the water being frozen in the conduits placed outside ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... unable to use it, from the defective temper of their tools, until the demand for furniture from the new wood compelled them to improve the quality of their implements. In America, the cheapness of wood long made it the preferable material for almost all purposes to which it could by any possibility be applied. The mechanical cutlery and artisans' tools of the United States are of admirable temper, finish, and convenience, and no ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... heaven-favoured geniuses, who, by a similarity of taste and sentiment, are enabled to penetrate the high mysteries of inspired fancy, and to pursue the loftiest flights of enthusiastic imagination. Nevertheless, the praise of the distinguished few is certainly preferable to the applause of the undiscerning million; for all praise is valuable in proportion to the judgment of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... now, though still clean, very dreary, because so poor—asked himself this question. He concluded that the foreign mill-owner was a selfish, an unfeeling, and, he thought, too, a foolish man. It appeared to him that emigration, had he only the means to emigrate, would be preferable to service under such a master. He felt much ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... is not taken away; but it is changed from the offering of those things formerly in use, to spiritual sacrifices. Now these are every way preferable; they are easier and cheaper to us, and yet more precious ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... neutralised for the moment his nervous dread of hurting her. Some little incident of their day together was rankling, and it was borne in upon him that almost any violent protest on her part would have been preferable to this constant soft evasion of hers, which was gradually, imperceptibly ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... description! Would it not be better," he suggested, with quivering ashen lips, "that we should surrender at discretion, without attempting resistance? If we do so we shall probably be shot, out of hand; but even that would be preferable to being carried off into the mountains, and there dying a lingering death by torture, as we know that many other whites have done who ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... favourite passages of the Psalms, and sign what few documents they required, they were content. Of their ignorance they were even inclined to be proud. Their own notions of geography and history seemed to them infinitely preferable to any that might be offered, and in this state of blissful ignorance they trekked away from Cape Colony to learn no more. When they started forth, some, it is averred, imagined by steadily working north they would reach Jerusalem; others, ...
— 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
... publication effected. Some tracts of this description have been occasionally published in the collections of our society, and we have no doubt that this course would be pursued with your work, if such should be your wish, and no preferable ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... travelers any risk, however great, seemed preferable to waiting. If they missed the evening train from Chattanooga to Marietta their usefulness was ended. No bridge-burning ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... mark of attention; but what has astonished me is, that Mr. —— should ever have informed Your Lordship, as he admits he did, that I had no intention of offering myself. This naturally must have put from your mind whatever degree of disposition was there to have made a preferable application to me; and Lord Howick's answer to your question, on which I have ventured to make a friendly remonstrance, must have confirmed Mr. ——'s report. But allow me to suppose that I had myself seen Your Lordship, and that you had explicitly promised me the support of Government, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... Domingo to the Cibao by way of the pass of the Sillon de la Viuda, or Widow's Chair. While the Widow's Chair road is about twenty miles longer than the Bonao road, it is preferable since on the whole it lies over firmer ground. It leads due north from Santo Domingo City and after four miles the Isabela River is crossed by ferry near its confluence with the Ozama. A steep ascent follows and the ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... and dusty. The odor of the "man and brother" did cling there still. A bench, a stool, an old rickety bedstead, and a bed of straw, completed the fitting out of the room. Save for the shelter of the roof, anywhere in the fields would have been far preferable. The first night disclosed the presence of fleas in abundance, ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... should at once send out several expeditions of skilled engineers to find the most suitable route for the future line. They should not proceed too cautiously, for even a considerable difference in cost would be preferable to loss ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... proud, indeed, of the distinction of being chosen to respond to this especial toast, to 'The Ladies,' or to women if you please, for that is the preferable term, perhaps; it is certainly the older, and therefore the more entitled to reverence [Laughter.] I have noticed that the Bible, with that plain, blunt honesty which is such a conspicuous characteristic ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... market. Indians nearly always go at a trot if they have an unusually heavy burden to carry far, and it appears to make their task easier. I do not know whether other nations have the same custom. There are many reasons why travelling by night is preferable. The air is cool and pleasant, there is no scorching sun to injure the fruit, and it gets into market in good time before the rush of business commences. A charitable Hindu has built a rest-house for the benefit of travellers, just ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... frequently discussed, whether it is preferable to make a large percentage of profit on the sale of a small quantity of goods, or a small percentage on a large quantity, we find that, in the lower stages of civilization, the former is preferred, and the latter in the higher.(648) And, indeed, the latter is not only more humane, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... the terms of the apology. I did not say, 'and which I am forced to make'; I said, 'and which my conscience induces me to make.' This latter expression, believe me, is better than the former; and it will be far preferable, since it will be the most truthful expression ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... offered friendly mediation; emphasising the suggestion by a hint that unless Spain could see her way to a pacification, Orange could now appeal with a prospect of success to France; and England could not afford to decline the preferable alternative ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... in here," said Betty, anxious to get away from the gaze of the other guests. She led the way into the card room which opened off the lobby and was preferable to making a public journey in the elevator. "Close the ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... "The young master is late to-night," he muttered to himself, as the daylight faded. "What possible pleasure can he find in these long, solitary rambles over the dunes? It is true though that it is so dreary here, in this lonely, dismal house, that any other place is preferable." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... preceding night. Several expired towards evening; among whom were the captain and first lieutenant. During the night, some thought of constructing a raft which might carry them to Cerigotto. The wind seemed favorable; and to perish in the waters seemed preferable to remaining to die a lingering death from hunger and thirst. At daylight, as fast as their feeble strength permitted, they prepared to put their plan in execution, by lashing together a number of larger spars. Scarcely had they launched it, when it was destroyed. ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... retreated from her presence, he felt sure; but the asking for it on his part would be unpleasant. That duty he must entrust to Kate. But as he reached Mr Scruby's door, he had decided that for such purposes as those now in hand, it was preferable that he should use his wife's fortune. It was thus that in his own mind he worded the phrase, and made for himself an excuse. Yes;—he would use his wife's fortune, and explain to Mr Scruby that he would be justified in doing so by the fact that his own heritage would ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... directed accordingly, and should the enemy descend into the Valley, General Longstreet will attack his rear, and cut off his communications. The enemy apparently is so strong in numbers that I think it preferable to baffle his designs by manoeuvring, rather than resist his advance by main force, To accomplish the latter without too great a risk and loss would require more than double our present numbers."* (* O.R. volume ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... are preferable to cocks for whiteness and tenderness, and the small fleshy ones with black legs ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... was not so much the immediate object of Stuart's efforts, as the opening of a commercial avenue with a view to future trade, in a direction more toward the north-west coast, and as far north as the 16 or 18 degrees of southern latitude. This line of exploration appeared preferable to the strong practical mind of Mr. Chambers, who had in view the quid pro quo. Stuart's object was therefore plain business, and the immediate advantage of the colony with which he was connected; whilst the Victorian Expedition included scientific discoveries, and the settlement ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... admired; and next to them the most graceful combatant was Lydon. This sham contest did not last above an hour, nor did it attract any very lively interest, except among those connoisseurs of the arena to whom art was preferable to more coarse excitement; the body of the spectators were rejoiced when it was over, and when the sympathy rose to terror. The combatants were now arranged in pairs, as agreed beforehand; their weapons examined; and the grave sports of the day commenced amidst the deepest silence—broken ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... to add, that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... of the question. They have tried the pleasures of the world, and they have also tried the pleasures of religion. And they will readily assure you, that in their deliberate judgment, one day thus spent in devotion, and the exercises of religion, is preferable to a thousand days wasted in the vain and unsatisfying pleasures, which they sought in their former wicked practices [Ps. ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... hold us back, we could not understand. The desert life was so deadening that any kind of a change would have been welcome. Every man would have been glad of even a repetition of the charge at Balaklava, though only few men would come out. Anything was preferable ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... life are troublesome to those who are not wealthy enough to disregard expense. But, here, as elsewhere, the privacy of one's own home is better than the publicity of a boarding-house, and a fuss with Bridget in one's own kitchen preferable to a row with a landlady, who may turn you out of doors at the very moment you are congratulating yourself that you are settled for the season. To persons with families, boarding-house life ought ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... England fare as coarsely, and labour harder, than was common in France; and taking their habits of frugality, their disposition to be satisfied, and their climate into the account, the situation of the French perhaps was preferable. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... that he always left them untouched. Arrowroot is another grand dependence of the nurse. As a vehicle for wine, and as a restorative quickly prepared, it is all very well. But it is nothing but starch and water. Flour is both more nutritive, and less liable to ferment, and is preferable ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... the Navy), who ought to know le dernier cri on the subject of the habits of rats, told us that the only way to get rid of them was to catch one and dress him up in a jacket and trousers—red preferable—tie a bell round his neck, and let him loose. "Then," he said, "the rat would run about among his companions and indicate the pressure brought upon rats, and soon there would not be one left ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... smiling. "I should be murder mad within three days. This is a preferable death, I assure you. Ten minutes, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... granite roots deep down in the world's center. A feeling of awe is in me when I gaze on it; but it is vain to ask myself now whether the vanished past, with its manifold troubles and transitory delights, was preferable to this unchanging peaceful present. I care for nothing but Yoletta; and if the old world was consumed to ashes that she might be created, I am pleased that it was so consumed; for nobler than all perished hopes and ambitions is the hope that I may one day wear that bright, consummate flower ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... unusually thoughtful, made her way to the front porch which presented an unusually populous appearance that morning. The day was rather warm, and a forenoon of idleness had appealed to the household as preferable to a more strenuous form ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... new assaults upon England. Ireland was held as a subjugated province, and was in a state of chronic discontent. To either wing of the British empire, alliance with, nay, submission to France, was considered preferable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... lamentations the answer came back after the accustomed fashion: "Slay, hang without respect to the forms of law; send lesser culprits, if preferable, to ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... one could extract enjoyment even from its most affecting parts. That was just what pleased him in Mozart's Don Juan, one met the tragic types there, as if at a masquerade, where even the domino was preferable to the plain character. I admitted that I should get on much more comfortably if I took life more seriously and art more lightly, but for the present I intended to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... will be better than an infirm one with temporary exemption from disaster. Every race has made its great blunders, to which it has nevertheless adhered, inasmuch as the corresponding modification of other structures and instincts was found preferable to the revolution which would be caused by a radical change of structure, with consequent havoc among a legion of vested interests. Rudimentary organs are, as has been often said, the survivals of these interests—the signs ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... now raining so hard that I determined not to hunt, and turned in among my blankets with my pipe, but after a time this failed to satisfy me, and by 11 o'clock Hunter and I decided that even a thorough wetting was preferable to doing nothing. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... season the sun does not set till 10.30, and rises again at 3 A.M. There is no darkness, midnight being almost as light as midday. During the hot months all kinds of insects pester the inhabitants. The horseflies and mosquitoes swarm in such numbers that the rigors of winter are considered preferable to the warmth ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 41, August 19, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Blue,'—addresses you in Canada with 'I have been all along one of the steadiest supporters of the British Government, but really, if claims such as mine are not more thought of, I shall begin to consider whether other institutions are not preferable to ours.' What to do under these circumstances of anxiety and discouragement is ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... adhikara/n/a. A few exceptions occurring later on will be noticed in their places.—Now neither Sutra 22 nor Sutra 23 contains any word intimating that a new Vedic passage is being taken into consideration, and hence it appears preferable to look upon them, with Ramanuja, as continuing the topic of the preceding adhikara/n/a.—This conclusion receives an additional confirmation from the position of the next adhikara/n/a, which treats of the being 'a span long' mentioned ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... writer's experience in expositions up to date she would approve the combination of the John Boyd Thatcher individual judge and diploma systems, together with the bronze, silver, gold, and "grand prix," which would be preferable from an educational standpoint and also to show to the world what the medal was given for. Also, the group or petit jury doing the work should combine with a larger jury, and perhaps a court of appeal, ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... never since that time practiced this singular mode of swimming; though I think it not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. The packet boat, however, is still preferable."[1] ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... been said about the imprudence and even recklessness of the young lieutenant, he was really a prudent and even cautious officer. He realized that any movement on his part would draw the fire of the insolent intruder, and he saw that strategy was far preferable to open violence, since the latter was likely to end only in killing or disabling him. If he could visit his stateroom and obtain his pair of navy revolvers, or even the smaller ones in one of the drawers of his desk, it would improve the chances in ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... hard substance to cut on (glass is preferable), and on this should be put a piece of paper. Upon this paper the print should be laid face downward, and after you have decided how much of it you are going to cut away, draw your knife firmly along by the edge of the glass, ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... times preferable to his friendship! I hate his whole being, even his very name; he spills the blood of men with the cross of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... arbitrary rule as to which side you shall swim on, left or right being a pure matter of choice; but while I think the left is preferable, as it gives greater play to the right arm, the right is the usual side "put on" by the majority. The great thing is to be able to swim equally well on either, as this enables you to keep your ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... essential is a tightly-covered kettle, either tinned iron or porcelain-lined, holding not less than two gallons; three being a preferable size. Whether cooked or uncooked meat is used, it should be cut into small bits, and all bones broken or sawn into short pieces, that the marrow ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... chloride of lime, dissolved in a quart of water. They should soak until all stains are removed, and the paper is restored to its proper color. Then the pages should be washed in cold water—running water is preferable—and allowed to soak about six hours. This removes all traces of the lime, which would otherwise tend to rot or injure the book. After this, the sheets are to be "sized," i. e., dipped in a bath of size and water, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... on the very tree or bush in which the nest is built, and while taking a look round to see that all is well before making a final ascent, you have yourself to blame if you fail to bag her. All this sounds very cruel; but if a bird must be shot for scientific purposes, it is surely preferable to kill it outright than to let it die a lingering death. Thus it was that I eventually succeeded, even at the expense of being devoured alive by midges and mosquitoes; but then had I not the satisfaction of knowing that to become the happy possessor of authentic ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... recent construe of Dean Wickham, clear, flowing, readable, stamping with the translator's high authority many a disputed passage. Both set temptingly before English readers the Rome of Horace's day, and promote them to an intimacy with his own mind, character, history. Preferable to both, no doubt, are the "Imitations" of Pope, which do not aim at literal transference, but work, as does his yet more famous Homer, by melting down the original, and pouring the fused mass into an English mould. Their background is Twit'nam and the Mall instead of Tibur and the Forum; ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... these animals for food, particularly for their hearts and tongues, which we esteemed exceeding good eating, and preferable even to those of bullocks. In general there was no difficulty in killing them, as they are incapable either of flight or resistance, their motion being the most unwieldy that can be imagined, and all the time they are in motion, their blubber is agitated in large waves under the skin. One day, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... existed in Persia and Europe long before Timur's time. It is practically certain that they did not come through Egypt. The article 'Gypsies' by F. H. Groome in Chambers's Encycl. (1904) is good, and seems to the editor to be preferable to Dr. Gaster's article 'Gipsies' in Encycl. Brit., ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... leave the 'Girl Graduate,' with much regret, for Mr. Wentworth Huyshe. Mr. Huyshe makes the old criticism that Greek dress is unsuited to our climate, and, to me the somewhat new assertion, that the men's dress of a hundred years ago was preferable to that of the second part of the seventeenth century, which I consider to have been the exquisite ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... enter into a dispute with Prince Houssain, but was persuaded that, if his perspective glass were not preferable, it was impossible it should be inferior, and therefore agreed to wait till Prince Ahmed arrived, to ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... lasted until the same hour Monday morning. If there had been some way of taking a mild anesthetic to have carried them through this period, many no doubt would have resorted to it, for oblivion was preferable to consciousness during ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... the form of Lewis' newly patented plate vice, which for durability, simplicity and utility is preferable to all others. It consists of a simple platform and arm of cast iron, the former, a, having a groove, d, in the centre for fixing the different sizes of plate beds, e—and the latter supporting the leaves, e f. On this vice which is secured to a table, ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... Turkish and Egyptian forces from Greece, or to protect that country from farther attempts at invasion by the before-mentioned powers; that for the speedy regulation of the internal affairs of Greece, and the support of your authority, it would be far preferable and infinitely less costly for the mediating powers to place in your hands the means of maintaining four or five thousand troops, together with five hundred seamen, and apply a portion of the vast sums ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... contrary? Whether the former or the latter be preferable would seem to admit of some difference of opinion; the answer in the present case being of an affirmative or of a negative character according as to whether one elects on the one hand to mentally suffer the disfavour of fortune, albeit in an extreme degree, or on the ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... separate its truths from its errors. For that power comes only by realizing that no human opinion, whatever its supposed origin, is too exalted for the test of evidence, that every opinion is only somebody's opinion. And if you ask why the test of evidence is preferable to any other, there is no answer unless you are willing to use the test in order ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... my part, Caesar, I have never been eager to make money by my art, but have gone on the principle that slender means and a good reputation are preferable to wealth and disrepute. For this reason, only a little celebrity has followed; but still, my hope is that, with the publication of these books, I shall become known even to posterity. And it is not to be wondered at that I am so generally unknown. Other architects go about and ask for opportunities ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... Lake, and where there is a belt of trees by the lake shore stands the residence of Mr. Stewart, another landlord. He, when cattle became high-priced, thought that cattle were much preferable to human beings, so he evicted gradually the dwellers who had broken in the hills, and entered into possession, without compensation, of the fields, the produce of others' toil and sweat. His dwelling is in a lonely, lovely spot, and it stands alone, for no cottage ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... continued to drop in, in this and the two succeeding months. The state of the convicts whom they brought out, though infinitely preferable to what the fleet of last year had landed, was not unexceptionable. Three of the ships had naval agents on board to control them. Consequently, if complaint had existed there, it would have been immediately redressed. Exclusive of these, the 'Salamander', (Captain Nichols) ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... carburized and transformed into cast iron. After this first operation, the metal was sent on to Stones Hill. They had, however, to deal with 136,000,000 pounds of iron, a quantity far too costly to send by railway. The cost of transport would have been double that of material. It appeared preferable to freight vessels at New York, and to load them with the iron in bars. This, however, required not less than sixty- eight vessels of 1,000 tons, a veritable fleet, which, quitting New York on the 3rd of May, ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... suggests a reading with much the same sense: .....epimonon all antoi "Strict and rigid dealing" (16). C. translates tonvn (Pal. MS.) as though from tonoz, in the sense of "strain." "rigour." The reading of other MSS. tonvn is preferable. ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... morning; neither was there any symptom of the persecution of the previous evening. No murmured words flung at him; no hissing; but only a few stares of wonder, almost, at his recent achievement. He was treated as a mere cypher,—sent to Coventry in fact. But this he did not mind; it certainly was preferable to positive persecution; and as he wished to keep calm for his coming ordeal, he was glad that nothing ensued to cause another fight—a contingency he had been fully prepared to expect. Warburton scowled at him. Egerton ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... that you are right, and I am wrong. Certainly, there is no disguising the fact that my life has become a real burden to me, and that business would be far preferable to a state ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... jars perfectly clean and warm. Glass covers are always preferable. Make a syrup of the sugar and water. Boil this hard for five minutes. Set back on the stove and let it settle, then skim very thoroughly. Pare, cut in half, and remove the stones from the peaches. When the syrup ...
— Things Mother Used To Make • Lydia Maria Gurney
... possible, said he, for anything to be more delightful than freedom from pain? Well, said I, but grant that nothing is preferable to that, (for that is not the point which I am inquiring about at present,) does it follow on that account, that pleasure is identical with what I may call painlessness? Undoubtedly it is identical with it, said he; and that painlessness ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... these establishments, and the positive presence of all that was wicked, cruel, and immoral, need we be surprised that occasional crimes of a dark and cruel character should be perpetrated? The truth is, that it is difficult to determine, whether unlettered ignorance itself were not preferable to the kind of education ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... mass of iron around which insulated wire is wound for the production of an electro-magnet. The shapes vary greatly, especially for field magnets of dynamos and motors. For these they are usually made of cast iron, although wrought iron is preferable from the point of ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... murderous stains made thereon by the lynchers. It is a disgrace even to the civilization of medieval times. For cruelty and outrage it is unparalleled in the annals of civilized society. Siberia itself is preferable to the convict camp. Given the worst form of human slavery plus the barbarities of prison life; add to this the horrors of a Spanish prison, and you have somewhat of an idea of the iniquitous institution of the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... external appearance is more pleasing than that of the building we just left. The one central and four terminal towers, with their open, kiosk-like tops, are really graceful, and the slender spires which surmount them are preferable to the sham of sheet-iron turrets. Thanks, too, to the necessity of projecting an annex for hydraulic engines from one side of the middle, the building is distinguished by the possession of a front. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... easier to apply because it sets less rapidly. Another advantage of the white is its colorlessness. Shellac is soluble in both grain alcohol (ethyl alcohol) and wood alcohol (methyl alcohol), but grain alcohol is preferable. Great care must be taken not to mix even a drop of water in it or it will curdle. To make perfect the process of ordinary filling, shellac may be used as a filler either by itself or preparatory to other processes. Since it dries quickly ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... with a good west wind he could navigate the little craft to the mainland. At any rate, he decided, it would be preferable to perish on the way than to remain indefinitely upon this evidently uncharted island to which no ships might ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... myself; but almost anything is preferable to this greasy business. If people had no more light than the candles I should make, unless I was obliged, they would have a ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... of nopals to a hut inhabited by an Indian family. We were received with the cordial hospitality observed in this country among people of every tribe. The hut in which we slung our hammocks was very clean; and there we found fish, plantains, and what in the torrid zone is preferable to the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... excellence here used as nearly synonymous with holiness. What is meant by calling the work a Guide. The term Woman— why preferable, as a general term, to Lady. The class to whom this work is ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... wrought steadily in felling trees, and by the close of the second day had enough timber for their raft. It would have been much preferable could they have constructed a good, stout boat; but it was not feasible, though Jeff and Tim would have built it had they possessed the necessary planking and boards. They had provided themselves with oakum, pitch, and other material; but the labor of sawing out the right kind of stuff would ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... part of his body or not. Charms based on the Law of Similarity may be called Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic. Charms based on the Law of Contact or Contagion may be called Contagious Magic. To denote the first of these branches of magic the term Homoeopathic is perhaps preferable, for the alternative term Imitative or Mimetic suggests, if it does not imply, a conscious agent who imitates, thereby limiting the scope of magic too narrowly. For the same principles which the magician applies ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... scuro style; the wine had so villanous a twang, that a few sips of it contented me; and the bread, black as it was, was the only thing palatable. I got the landlady persuaded to boil me an egg; and though the Italian peasants only dip their eggs in hot water, and serve them up raw, it was preferable to the conglomerate of the pan. We made merry, however, over our poor meal and the grateful warmth of the fire; and somewhere towards midnight we entertained the question of going to bed. We had avoided the topic as long as possible, from a ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... in her mind the exact ingredients and painful method of preparation of the entrees at which she was toiling. Betsy, the former maid-of-all-work, now promoted under the title of cook, could be trusted to roast the saddle of mutton, which, on consideration that it was "a party," had been thought preferable to a leg, and she could boil the fish, after a sort, and make good honest family soup, and the rice-pudding or apple-tart, which was the nearest approach to luxury indulged in at the Parsonage; but as for entrees, Betsy did not know what they were. She had heard of made dishes ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... contestors themselves, preside over the performances, and award the honors to those whom they deem most worthy of them. The greatest excitement prevails upon this occasion, and an honor thus conferred is preferable to any ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... Wesel; ready, always ready. Into France, into Holland, England? If the English would not,—there is war to be in Italy, say all the Newspapers: why not a campaign as Volunteers in Italy, till we saw how matters went? Anything and all things are preferable to ignominy like this. No dog ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... with Europeans the article that attracted most notice was iron. Its utility, in forming the instruments of war and husbandry, make it preferable to all others, and iron soon became the measure by which the value of all other commodities was ascertained. Thus, a certain quantity of goods, of whatever denomination, appearing to be equal in value to a bar of iron, constituted, in the traders' phraseology, a bar of that particular ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... 6 to 12 inches square when finished. They are stitched around the outer edge (except for a small length through which the beans are inserted). The bag should then be turned and stitched a second time. Hand sewing is preferable, as often better able to withstand the strain put upon it. The bag is filled with dried beans or peas. A bag 6 inches square should contain 1/2 pound of these. A larger bag may contain a few more, but the half-pound weight is good for any sized bag. For little ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... his face with his hands. "Avaunt, Satan, I defy thee! Ten thousand, thousand times preferable is the doom of the Wehr-Wolf, appalling even though that be!" With folded arms and scornful countenance, did the demon stand gazing upon Wagner, by the light of the supernatural luster ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... for tanning purposes was first protected by Ger. Pat., 206,957 (30th April 1907). According to this patent, only 400 gm. of quinone are required for the conversion into leather of 400 kilos pelt, drum tannage being preferable. During the process the leather first assumes a reddish colour, changing through violet to brown; its resistance to water, acids, and alkalies is said to be considerably greater than that exhibited by all ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... which he has been nominally opposing. In dealing with business interests, for the Government to undertake by crude and ill-considered legislation to do what may turn out to be bad, would be to incur the risk of such far-reaching national disaster that it would be preferable to undertake nothing at all. The men who demand the impossible or the undesirable serve as the allies of the forces with which they are nominally at war, for they hamper those who would endeavor to find out in rational fashion what ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... from one who had regarded Alice as a mother. The load of horror, the agony of shame, were indeed gone; but still a voice whispered as before, "Evelyn is lost to thee forever!" But so shaken had already been her image in the late storms and convulsion of his soul, that this thought was preferable to the thought of sacrificing Alice. If that were all—but Evelyn might still love him; and justice to Alice might be misery to her! He started from his revery with a vehement gesture, and ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... regretted. But no matter; you cannot reverse it. You cannot undo all that eighty eventful years have done. You cannot transform the Englishmen of 1640 into the Englishmen of 1560. It may be that the simple loyalty of our fathers was preferable to that inquiring, censuring, resisting spirit which is now abroad. It may be that the times when men paid their benevolences cheerfully were better times than these, when a gentleman goes before ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... country, and less able to command supplies of provision; but we have arms in our hands, and in these we have everything. For myself, it has long been my principle, that a retiring general or army is never safe. Hot only, then, are we to reflect that death with honor is preferable to life with ignominy, but to remember that security and glory are seated in the same place. Even to fall in this extremest verge of earth and of nature cannot be thought ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... King of Prussia appeared preferable to the more natural King of Brandenburg, because Prussia lay wholly without the empire, and consequently its king was not in any sense subject to the emperor but was wholly independent. Since western Prussia still belonged to Poland in 1701 the new king ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... of May, June, July and August, the oyster becomes soft and milky. It is not then very healthful or well flavored. The common-sized oysters are good for all purposes of cooking except broiling and frying, when the large are preferable. The very large ones are not served as frequently on the half shell as in former years, the Blue-point, or the small Wareham, ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... For herself she cared little whether she were rich or poor. It could make but a difference of detail in the fact of her unhappiness, whether she were mistress of Wyncomb or a homeless tramp upon the country roads. The workhouse without Stephen Whitelaw must needs be infinitely preferable to Wyncomb Farm with him. And for her father, it seemed only a natural and justifiable thing that his guilt and his greed should be so punished. He had sold his daughter into life-long slavery for nothing but that one advance of two hundred pounds. He had saved himself from ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... photograph to color we want as perfect a print as it is possible to procure. A light one is preferable. Notice in particular if it is well defined, that the shadows and middle shades are clear, the lights pure, and that it is free from defects and spots. Many think that they can take a poor photograph, and, by coloring it, cover up the defects, but they are wrong in this, for the transparent colors ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
... Black ink is always preferable. That which is free from sediment and flows well, should be selected. Use an inkstand with broad base as being less liable to upset. With persons in learning to write it is perhaps best to have a quality of ink which is perfectly black when put on the paper, in order that they may see the results ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... expected, and my privations had largely been in vain. Despairing and hungry, on the third day, I commenced howling and screaming, hoping that some one would hear me, and come to my relief, for almost anything else would have been preferable to the privation and hunger from which I was suffering. But I could make no one hear, at least no one paid any attention to my screams, if they did hear. In the evening, however, one of the deck hands came ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... we to go and pray for Otho or for Vitellius? To pray for either would be impious. It would be wicked to offer vows for the success of either in a war of which we can only be sure that the winner will prove the worse.' Some cherished hopes of Vespasian and the armies of the East: he was preferable to either of the others; still they shuddered at the thought of a fresh war and fresh bloodshed. Besides, Vespasian's reputation was doubtful. He was the first emperor who ever ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... tyranny, and to give Dionysius the character of a fair and lawful governor; and had determined, if he should continue averse to that, and were not to be reclaimed, to depose him, and restore the commonwealth to the Syracusans; not that he approved a democratic government, but thought it altogether preferable to a tyranny, when a sound and good aristocracy ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... capacity. "The young master is late to-night," he muttered to himself, as the daylight faded. "What possible pleasure can he find in these long, solitary rambles over the dunes? It is true though that it is so dreary here, in this lonely, dismal house, that any other place is preferable." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... golden rod transformed the long room into a bower. Seats were begged and borrowed, and all the cooks in town made cake with fury and pride for the great affair. The tickets were sold without much trouble, and the girls had no end of fun in rehearsing the tableaux which were decided on as preferable in an entertainment given by the King's Daughters, because in tableaux everybody has something to do. Grace was to read from "Young Lucretia" and a poem by Hetta Lord Hayes Ward, a lovely poem about a certain St. Bridget who trudges up to heaven's gate, after her toiling ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... to fill a page with instances of these two cases, the objective and the possessive, used, as I may say, indiscriminately; nor is there any other principle by which we can determine which of them is right, or which preferable, than that the leading word in sense ought not to be made the adjunct in the construction, and that the participle, if it remain such, ought rather to relate to its noun, as being the adjunct, than to govern it in the possessive, as ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... each of them, and fully resolved to own one of them by the next harvest, but their performance that day left me in a state of doubt which I should select. The report spoke in terms of high praise of each machine, and I consented to its award, that on the whole Mr. McCormick's was preferable, merely because being the cheapest, and requiring but two horses, it would best suit the majority of our farmers, who make small crops of wheat on weak land, for I doubted its capacity in heavy grain. After ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... be for the patrons to decide absolutely nothing. It is, and will always be, for the gentlemen of the hanging committee alone, duly chosen, to decide whether empty space be preferable to poor pictures—whether, in short, it be their duty to cover walls, merely that walls may be covered—no matter with what quality ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... of no Equivocations, or Mental resarvations: will you serve me or not? will you obey me? have you any other Interest? Say yes or no, I shall be yr friend iff you will serve me; Iff you have anybody preferable to me to serve, Let me alone, have you ye Interest of yr Contre at hart, or a particular one, for my part I have but one God and one Country, and Untill I compas ye prosperity of my Poor Cuntry shall never be at rest, or Let any Stone unturned to ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... nervous fluid is taken to our brain, it is always collected in vats, so to say, intended for the use of one of our senses, and for that reason, a certain series of ideas, preferable to others, are aroused. Thus we see when the optic nerve is excited, and hear when those of the ear are moved. Let us here remark that taste and smell are rarely experienced in dreams. We dream of flowers, but not of their perfume; we see ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... active duty. Frequently, when visiting various hospitals, have I noticed the brightening eye of the patients as I have told them some laughable incident, or given an hour's amusement to the crowd of convalescents—a far preferable dose, they told me, to quinine. A word of praise to the suffering ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... state of consciousness, is necessary to constitute sensation; when it does not exist, it is preferable to give the phenomenon another name, otherwise the fault is committed of mixing up separate facts. Physiologists have, on this point, some faults of terminology with which to reproach themselves: for they have employed the word sensibility with too little of the critical ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... had been allowed to unduly influence his mind. The loneliness of the situation and the bleak nature of the surroundings had helped to complete the illusion. He began to be ashamed of his suspicions and a change commenced gradually to be wrought in his thoughts. Anyhow a dinner and a bed were preferable to six miles in the dark, no dinner, and a cold ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... unless apparent marks of fraud or corruption (which in equity would set aside any contract) accompanied the measure, or such striking evidence of national injury attended their adoption as to make a war or any other evil preferable? Every unbiased mind ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... in, to notice his agitation, and for some time he was left to his own uncomfortable reflections. In vain he wished himself safe within the walls of Nottingham Castle. Even Haddon would have been preferable, but even that sorry refuge was denied him too. However much he wished it, he could not break away from the fact that he was at London, almost within arm's length of his persecutor, and he already began to ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... and others, who have carefully investigated the subject, have placed in A.D. 169 the martyrdom of Polycarp. The following reasons may be assigned why this date is decidedly preferable to that contended ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... table he found a chair tilted forward, as though in reservation for some honored guest. What did it mean? Oh, he remembered now. Told the boy to tell his mother he would have a friend to dine with him. Bert—and, blast the fellow! he was, doubtless, dining then with a far preferable companion—his wife—in a palace-car on the P., C. & St. L., a hundred miles away. The thought was maddening. Of course, now, the landlady would have material for a new assault. And how could he avert ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... Neither on foot nor on horseback, still less with loaded carts, is it possible to travel through these hills. But to the east and to the west of them the frontier is no better than that which separates Yugoslavia from Roumania, and when it came to the delimitation the Magyars thought it would be preferable if this work were done with their assistance. Otherwise, so they urged, there would be no check upon the wicked intolerance of their neighbours. It is true that they themselves had in the past been in favour of centralization, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... know. But, if it is a question of equality, let the equality be complete. Though it has been found that to contract marriages through the agency of match-makers is humiliating, it is nevertheless a thousand times preferable to our system. There the rights and the chances are equal; here the woman is a slave, exhibited in the market. But as she cannot bend to her condition, or make advances herself, there begins that other ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... takes,—which intervening piece may belong to either player. The king must not be opposite the other king without a piece between. All this certainly sounds very complex and awkward to the English or American player; and our game has the preferable tendency of increasing the power of the pieces, (as distinct from pawns,) rather than, with theirs, limiting their powers and multiplying their number. However, it is probable, whatever may be the respective ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... extreme poverty. The working-woman of the South belonged to a totally different class from that in which Mr. and Mrs. Jocelyn had their origin, and prejudices die hard, even among people who are intelligent, and, in most respects, admirable. To Mrs. Jocelyn and her daughters work was infinitely preferable to dependence, but it was nevertheless menial and undignified because of its almost involuntary and hereditary association with a race of bond-servants. He is superficial indeed in his estimate of character who thinks that people can change their views and feelings in response to ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... chuckle—the nearest he ever came to a laugh: "To have it go ON, sir, is infinitely preferable than to have it go OFF, sir. He-he! And you have, I believe you said, two of these highly valuable implements ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... what I can do for you," said Heye, at parting, alternately snapping his suspenders and scratching his head. Though he was in his stocking-feet and coat-less, though the back of his neck was a scraggle of hair, Parker Heye was preferable to the three Swiss waiters snoring in the hot room under the eaves, with its door half open, opposite the half-open door of the room where negro chambermaids tumbled and snorted in uncouth slumber. Carl's nose wrinkled with bitter fastidiousness as he pulled off his clothes, sticky with heat, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... clearer vision than the blinded and desperate wretch in the trap. He who enlists with the brigands of "frenzied finance" and takes the oath of addition, division, and silence cannot discharge himself because his comrades are needlessly harsh to their victims. Eventually he may decide on desertion as preferable to throat-cutting, but to suggest resignation is to invite destruction, for it is a tradition of the fraternity that the best cure for ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... truce was called. From his place of vantage in the hall Giselher reproached his sister with her treachery, and Kriemhild offered to spare her brothers if they would consent to give up Hagen. But this offer they contemptuously refused, holding death preferable to such dishonour. Kriemhild, in her bitter hate, set the hall on fire, and most of the Burgundians perished in the conflagration. Kriemhild and the Huns were astounded, however, when in the morning they discovered six hundred of the Burgundians were still alive. The queen appealed to ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... in a few cases to design, in more to ignorance, in most to that disposition on the part of all men to believe readily what they wish ardently. It made little difference whether the writer were Whig or Tory. If anything the open dislike of the latter was preferable to the patronizing regard of the former. In 1804 the poet Moore visited America. He wrote home a number of poetical epistles, in which he told his friends that he had found us old in our youth and blasted in our prime. The demon gold was running loose; everything and everybody was corrupt; truth, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... an honourable termination. It may be objected that this is to argue from consequences, since known, which could hardly be foreseen at the moment; yet one must admit that reticence would have been preferable, for we have to remember that M. Ollivier was disclosing a telegram intercepted, so to speak, on its passage to a foreign embassy, thereby forestalling not only the Spanish ambassador but also ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... away from Nature, instead of keeping with her and with an unvarying result; an endless series of common catastrophes has overtaken all civilized nations alike, while the savage tribes have alone been perpetual. I don't say that savage life is at all preferable, only that it alone has been capable of perpetuating races. In going back to Nature, I propose to take what of good we ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... This is surely preferable to loitering in news-rooms, sauntering in the shops of pretty milliners, breaking down the fences of farmers, or riding over young wheat—innocent pastimes, sometimes undertaken by young officers for ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... consolation in this was that I had the tail of the dogcart to myself, which was infinitely preferable to ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... suicidally likewise into rubbish and Chaos, will be glad to rally; to begin growing, and new-shaping her inorganic dust: very slowly, through centuries, through Napoleons, Louis Philippes, and other the like media and phases,—into a new, infinitely preferable ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the instinctive, would be formulated in what philosophers call categorical propositions, while the second kind, the intellectual, would always be expressed hypothetically. Of these two faculties, the former seems, at first, much preferable to the other. And it would be so, in truth, if it extended to an endless number of objects. But, in fact, it applies only to one special object, and indeed only to a restricted part of that object. Of this, at least, its knowledge is intimate and full; not explicit, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... Catholic religion was the religion of the Cisalpine Republic and must be maintained by a State budget. Only the first part of this proposal could be carried: so keen was the opposition to the second part that, as a preferable plan, property was set apart for the support of the clergy; and clerical discipline was subjected to the State, on terms somewhat similar to those ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... took rooms which I could not be pleased with three days through the absence of sunshine and warmth. The consequence was that we had to pay heaps of guineas away, for leave to go away ourselves—any alternative being preferable to a return of illness—and I am sure I should have been ill if we had persisted in staying there. You can scarcely fancy the wonderful difference which the sun makes in Italy. So away we came into the blaze of him in the Piazza Pitti; precisely ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... project of going to Urbana was now changed, by himself or the Government, upon the unanimous advice of his chief subordinate generals, into a movement to Fort Monroe, which he had even before regarded as preferable to a direct advance southwards. A few days after Johnston's retreat, the War Department began the embarkation of his troops for this point. Fort Monroe is at the end of the peninsula which lies between the estuaries of the York ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the window?" asked the Doctor, rising in great wrath and striding towards the unhappy lawyer. Mr. Screw instantly made up his mind that the door was preferable, and disappeared. When he was gone Claudius sat down again. He was very angry; but, in his own view, his anger was just. It was very clear to him, from the words Mr. Screw had inadvertently let fall, that some one had, for reasons unknown, undertaken to cause him a great deal of ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... of the Western Lochs, laden with hundreds of passengers sailed direct for the far west. In that day this was a great undertaking, fraught with perils of the sea, and a long, comfortless voyage. Yet all this was preferable than the homes they loved so well; but no longer homes to them! They carried with them their language, their religion, their manners, their customs and costumes. In short, it was a Highland community transplanted to more ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... sober, and godly life, as he knew none of them could with any shadow of reason contest. He then challenged them to propose any thing they could urge, to prove that a life of irreligion and debauchery was preferable to the fear, love and worship of the eternal God, and a conduct agreeable to the precepts of his gospel. And he failed not to bear his testimony, from his own experience, (to one part of which many of them had been witnesses) that after having run the widest round of ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... the alternative so frequently discussed, whether it is preferable to make a large percentage of profit on the sale of a small quantity of goods, or a small percentage on a large quantity, we find that, in the lower stages of civilization, the former is preferred, and the latter in the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... to rest for the day, and think. I really was tired, and a seat in the shade by an open window would, I felt, be far preferable, so I seated myself, and tried to follow up my early success with some fresh idea that would ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... invented and forgotten years ago. With the daily improvements in science, we may soon expect to see Colonel Jacob's in general use, unless the same principle applied to Whitworth's hexagonal ball should be found preferable. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... shoot bears to-morrow," said Paul, philosophically. "Where is tandy?" With him evidently the prospect of present enjoyment was preferable to the future possibility of ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... as where they now are." [Footnote: Id., p. 649.] Next day he elaborated the same ideas in a letter, adding the suggestion before made by him that the line of advance by way of North Alabama was a preferable one to the route through ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... lagged more and more as she neared the river. Long before she reached it she stopped and sat down. How intensely she wished that her sacrifice was to wander alone with Snatchet the rest of her days! Anything would have been preferable to Lem and his scow. But the bargain with her enemies had been the surrendering of herself to the canalman, and shortly she rose and proceeded on her way to the barge. Before entering it, she raised her eyes to the sky. Everything was at peace with the Infinite, save her own little tortured soul. ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... theatres—of permitting only a small number of musicians to perceive the very important indication of the second beat; the body of the conductor then hiding the movement of his arm. The other method of proceeding is preferable; since the conductor stretches his arm outwards, withdrawing it from his chest; and his stick, which he takes care to raise slightly above the level of his shoulder, remains perfectly visible to all eyes. When the conductor faces the players, it is immaterial whether ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... bite. Everywhere things appeared uneven. He was not one to complain of mere external inequalities: if he was inclined to envy Lord Meikleham, it was not because of his social position: he was even now philosopher enough to know that the life of a fisherman was preferable to that of such a marquis as Lord Lossie—that the desirableness of a life is to be measured by the amount of interest and not by the amount of ease in it, for the more ease the more unrest; neither was ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... therefore obliged to halt, and could not get them to move for three hours. I am sorry to say that some who should have known much better endeavoured to instil into the minds of the men that it was preferable only to walk a few miles a day and not to waste their strength by long marches; utterly forgetting that most of the party had now only seven or eight pounds of fermented flour left, and that if they did not make play whilst they had strength their eventually reaching Perth ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... by seeing the white people made, and so made them better; for it is certain they considered themselves and their methods of living, which they said their God expressly prescribed for them, vastly preferable to the white ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... for you to march to the rear of Petersburg; but, failing in this, you could strike either of the sea-coast ports in North Carolina held by us. From there you could take shipping. It would be decidedly preferable, however, if you could ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... before, the building under consideration is the largest example of this kind of work yet done in the neighborhood of New York City. It was adopted instead of corrugated iron, as it is much more substantial, and it was considered preferable to brick, as the later would have required ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... runs over all this hurriedly in her mind, the desire for riches grows upon her. Yes, there is certainly a great deal of good in Rossmoyne, besides his income; and perhaps a solid sternness is preferable to an airy gayety of manner (this with an irrepressible leaning towards the "airy gayety"); and—and—what a pity it is that ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
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