"Habit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could not see Mr. Tudor under the awning, but she had caught sight of my silk dress. Jill looked very well on horseback: people always turned round to watch her. She had a good seat, and rode gracefully; the dark habit suited her; she braided her unmanageable locks into an invisible net that kept ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... his wife's death; not a shattered mind that his life so carefully laid out not twelve months before was disoriented; not any self-pity; not any grievance against God such as little men might have. But a strange dumb wonder.... There she lay within, in her habit of a Dominican lay sister, her hands waxy, her face waxy, her eyelids closed. And six guttering candles were about her, and woman droned their prayers with a droning as of bees. There she lay with her hands clasped on a wooden crucifix. And no more would the robins wake her, and they fussing in ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... ears they reported that they feared that the Americans were planning their extinction, and a confederation was being formed to resist the building of American forts on the Indian lands. As late as 1825, of the four thousand Indians in the habit of visiting Drummond Island, three thousand came from the region west and southwest of Lake Huron—that is from American territory.[37] These motley processions which trailed through the American woods, stopping to beg at the American posts, were not slow in being reported. It did not ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... success notwithstanding. Mademoiselle Vigean excepted, he appears to have been incapable of inspiring the tender passion, in the truest acceptation of the phrase. He went further than his sister, it seems, in the neglect of his person. It was his habit of life to be almost always badly dressed, and only appeared radiant on the field of battle. So that the Duke de Nemours was not the only rival with whom Conde had to contend for the favours of that beauty for whom Louis XIV. in his boyish amusements ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... other Receivers about this widespread and audacious conspiracy at present rampant in the West of Ireland ... This was actually a conspiracy which on ordinary moral grounds amounted to highway robbery, to seize on these grass lands, to drive away the stock of the people who had been in the habit of taking it; and then, when the owner had been starved out, the Estates Commissioners were expected to buy up the property and to distribute it amongst the very people who had been urging on the business, and who had been ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... beheld Mr. Adister's phaeton mounting a hill that took the first leap for the Cambrian highlands, up to his arrival in London, scarcely one of his 'ideas' darted out before Patrick, as they were in the habit of doing, like the enchanted bares of fairyland, tempting him to pursue, and changing into the form of woman ever, at some turn of the chase. For as he had travelled down to Earlsfont in the state of ignorance and hopefulness, bearing the liquid brains of that young condition, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by Ellen's sobs. Mrs. Montgomery's voice had trembled, and her face was now covered with her hands; but she was not weeping; she was seeking a better relief where it had long been her habit to seek and find it. Both resumed their usual composure, and the employments which had been broken off; but neither chose to renew the conversation. Dinner, sleeping, and company prevented their having another opportunity during the rest of ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... bad habit just the same. You are still a very young man and ought to take good care of your health. There are many occasions in life when ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... my good lady," replied I, "that had any one but you made such a declaration, I should have thought it as capricious as that of the clergyman, who, without vindicating his false reading, preferred, from habit's sake, his old Mumpsimus ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... definitely planned out. You say—'For a certain length of time she will talk to me of her husband, then of God, and then of the inevitable consequences. But I will use and abuse the ascendancy I shall gain over her; I will make myself indispensable; all the bonds of habit, all the misconstructions of outsiders, will make for me; and at length, when our liaison is taken for granted by all the world, I shall be this woman's master.'—Now, be frank; these are your thoughts! Oh! you calculate, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... and hurtful gossip and evil-speaking, not so much from ill-will, as from old habit, as a wagon falls into a rut. Or they drift into it with the current of conversation about them. Or they are beguiled into it by a desire to say something, and be pleasant ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... never got into the habit of using it, now I have seen what a slave it can make of a strong ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... shallow teak wood baskets, suspended near the roof in a partially shaded structure, all the chimaeroid section of Masdevallia succeed even better than when grown in pots or pans, as they have a Stanhopea-like habit of pushing out their flowers at all sorts of deflected angles. A close glance at the engraving will show that for convenience sake the artist has propped up the flower with a stick, this much arrangement being a necessity, so as to enable the tails to lie diagonally ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... there came the sound of blithe whistling from Jock's room. Jock always whistled when he went to bed and when he rose. Even these years of living in a New York apartment had not broken him of the habit. It was a cheerful, disconnected whistling, sometimes high and clear, sometimes under the breath, sometimes interspersed with song, and sometimes ceasing altogether at critical moments, say, during shaving, ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... which from his position he could claim legitimately. Now he was being deposed. There could be no better touchstone in such a matter than Butterwell. He would go as the world went, but he would perceive almost intuitively how the world intended to go. "Tact, tact, tact," as he was in the habit of saying to himself when walking along the paths of his Putney villa. Crosbie was now secretary, whereas a few months before he had been simply a clerk; but, nevertheless, Mr Butterwell's instinct ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... who are too strongly possessed with our common habit of classifying writers into kinds, as historians, poets, scientific and speculative writers, and so on, it may seem strange to include Mr. Tennyson in this list. But as I have advisedly referred to Wordsworth as one of the representatives and ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... to defend himself continually from charges, which most people knew were true, and so by habit he grew to deny everything, not only for himself, but for his friends. The poet needs solitude and society, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... the habit of going at the early morning right to the end of the headland, on the high cliffs of Pors-Even; passing behind Yann's old home, so as not to be seen by his mother or little sisters. She went to the extreme point of the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of it; nobody ever does. We are just buried alive. We have lived here for years, and scarcely know a soul—not even our own, perhaps. Why on earth should one? Acquaintances, after all, are little else than a bad habit.' ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... to remember perfectly that such were the King's intentions. 'Tis a very strange thing, Sir. Every one knows now the secrets of the late king, if you are willing to listen. Yet he was not in the habit of taking all the world into his confidence. The Queen takes her opinions as they give them to her. 'Tis a very good princess, but I am sorry she is so ignorant of affairs. As she says she remembers, one is obliged to say one ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... or four times I have, a school-boy copy of verses for Merchant Taylors' boys, at a guinea a copy, I have fretted over them, in perfect inability to do them, and have made my sister wretched with my wretchedness for a week together. The same, till by habit I have acquired a mechanical command, I have felt in making paragraphs. As to reviewing, in particular, my head is so whimsical a head, that I cannot, after reading another man's book, let it have been never so pleasing, give any account of it in any methodical ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... my journal from Fort Enterprise, together with all the astronomical and meteorological observations made during the descent of the Copper-Mine River, and along the sea-coast, (except those for the dip and variation.) I was in the habit of carrying it strapped across my shoulders, but had taken it off on entering the canoe, to reduce the upper weight. The results of most of the observations for latitude and longitude, had been registered in the sketch books, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... to pursue a course of more moderation; that a system that nourished such virtues as she found in Portia, in Tacitus, and others like them, could not be so corrupting in its power as the Christians were in the habit of representing it; that if we could succeed in substituting Christianity quietly, without alienating the affections, or shocking too violently the prejudices, of the believers in the prevailing superstitions, our gain would be double. ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... was anxious about Joe. The boy did not seem to get over the thing the way he should. Now and then Le Moyne, resuming his old habit of wearying himself into sleep, would walk out into the country. On one such night he had overtaken Joe, tramping along with ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and to-day [looks at the clock] at two o'clock, that is in a few minutes' time, she will be here. I promised Victor I would receive her, but you understand how I am placed! I am not myself at all; and so, from old habit, I sent for you. I ...
— The Live Corpse • Leo Tolstoy
... beginning to connect itself uncomfortably in his mind with his speculations about his wealthy client, which in that solitude and darkness began to seem not so entirely pure and disinterested as he was in the habit of regarding them, and a sort of wood-demon, such as a queer little schoolfellow used long ago to read a tale about in an old German story-book, was now dogging his darksome steps, and hanging upon his flank with ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... on a Friday. After breakfast next morning Taffy went to fetch his books. He did so out of habit and without thinking; but his ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Cabades to death, he would straightway make trouble for the Persians. But they were altogether unwilling to put to death a man of the royal blood, and decided to confine him in a castle which it is their habit to call the "Prison of Oblivion." For if anyone is cast into it, the law permits no mention of him to be made thereafter, but death is the penalty for the man who speaks his name; for this reason it ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... like a play: wherein every man forgetful of himself, is in travail with expression of another. Nay, we so insist in imitating others, as we cannot when it is necessary return to ourselves; like children, that imitate the vices of stammerers so long, till at last they become such; and make the habit to another nature, as it ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... of spirits and water to drink. In the night I was to eat a little biscuit. None of the camels had bridles, unless used solely to ride upon. The camel which I rode was a very good one, and very knowing, and, like many knowing animals, very vicious. He was in the habit of biting all the other camels which did not please him on their hind quarters, but took care not to get bitten himself. He seldom stumbled, and I was rarely in fear of falling. A camel will never ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... skin. It's one's nature,—how can one fight against nature? And yet, I take it, it's the very business of faith to conquer our evil nature. As I read somewhere, any dead dog can float with the stream; it's the living dog that swims against it. I mind the trouble I had about the wicked habit of swearing, when first I took to trying to serve God and leave off my evil courses. Bad words came to my mouth as natural as the very air that I breathed. What did I do to cure myself of that evil? Why, I resolved again and again, and found that my resolutions were ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... Marchioness of Mantua in 1502, in a letter enclosing Pistoia's verses, "an invective against Sasso for certain sonnets and epigrams which he printed at Bologna against our Duke Lodovico Sforza, and which some people say that I wrote. It was never my habit to attack others, but if I had wasted a little ink in defending so illustrious a prince, I hardly think I should deserve ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... felt well satisfied with her cruel deeds, and planned to tell the king, on his return, that savage wolves had devoured his consort and his children. It was her habit, however, to prowl often about the courts and alleys of the mansion, in the hope of scenting raw meat, and one evening she heard the little boy Day crying in a basement cellar. The child was weeping because his mother had threatened to whip him for some naughtiness, ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... Habit. Examples. Inevitableness of Habits in Brain and Nervous System. How to Insure Useful Habits—Choose What Shall Enter; Choose Mode of Entrance; Choose Mode of Egress; Go Slowly at First; Observe Four Maxims. Advantages and Disadvantages of Habit. ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... Lenine's statement that this new domination of the people by a ruling minority differs from the old regime in that the Bolsheviki are imposing their will upon the mass "in the interest of the latter." What ruling class ever failed to make that claim? Was it not the habit of the Czars, all of them, during the whole revolutionary epoch, to indulge in the pious cant of proclaiming that they were motived only by their solicitude for the interests ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... AEt. 55. An anasarcous leg, and sciatica; full habit. After bleeding and a purge, a blister was applied in the manner recommended by Cotunnius; and two grains of fol. Digital. with fifteen of fol. cicutae were directed to be taken night and morning. The medicine acted only as a diuretic; the pain ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... their eyebrows are not so strongly marked as those of the Chinese. They have flat noses and large mouths, and their lips bulge out in a way rendered the more disagreeable as they are always black and dirty from the habit indulged in, by men and women alike, of chewing areca nut mixed with betel and lime. The women, who are almost as tall as the men, have not a more pleasant appearance; and the repulsive filthiness, common to both sexes, is enough without ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... M. Carraud had a fine scientific mind; he approved of Balzac's scheme, and thought of going with him; his wife was astonished on hearing this, since he never left the house even to look after his own estate. However, his natural habit asserted itself and he gave up ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... some annoyance. He usually returned by the other side of the river, and she was not grateful to him for his breach of habit. Why had he been meddling in her affairs? She perfectly understood why Augustina had been making herself so difficult about the dance, and about the Masons in general. Let him keep his proprieties to himself. She, Laura, had nothing ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... stopped, thinking of her recovered confidence in his character and her husband's; in this thought she experienced an elevation of the spirits, a new hopefulness, which, after the dreary blank of the morning's outlook, was like sunshine after rain. With this elevation the religious habit of thought which she had learned from Halsey intermingled. "O Ephraim," she cried, "I believe that God sent you to give me back ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... shade so imperceptibly into the palest gray, that there was no telling where the pupils ended, especially as the lids were habitually half closed, as if weighed down by the black length of their borders. The habit of arching up one or other of the eyebrows, in surprise or interrogation, gave a drollery to the otherwise nonchalant sweetness of the countenance. The mass of raven black hair was only adorned by a crimson ribbon, beneath which it ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Delane to the houses of several people of fashion who saw masks. We went to a great number, and were a tolerable, nay, a much-admired, group. Lady K. went in a domino with a smart cockade; Miss Moore dressed in the habit of one of the females of the new discovered islands; Betty D. as a forsaken shepherdess; and your sister Mary in a black domino. As it was taken for granted the stranger who had just arrived could not speak the language, I was to be ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... beauties of our own land delight in bedecking themselves with fanciful articles of jewellery, suspending them from their ears, hanging them about their necks, and clasping them around their wrists; so Fayaway and her companions were in the habit of ornamenting themselves with ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... agreed upon the propriety of paying the foreign loan, but the battle raged about every other point in turn. One of the legacies of the old Congress was the principle of repudiating what it was not convenient to redeem, and the politicians of the country had insensibly fallen into the habit of assuming that they should start clear with the new government, and relegate the domestic debt to the limbo which held so many other resources best forgotten. They were far from admitting the full measure of their inheritance, however, and opened the battle with a loud denouncement of ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... and toss, and this awakened Miss Ainsley, who looked around wonderingly. Mrs. Willoughby in low tones recalled what had happened, and explained the present aspect of affairs. Mrs. Bodine performed the same office for Mara, who also had been aroused by the voices near. The girl's habit of self-control served her in good stead, and she immediately rose, gave her hand to Bodine in greeting, and then knelt beside her aunt. Seeing Mara so near, Miss Ainsley quickly rose also, and moved ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... bitterness against the government's policy in Ireland. Now and then he recollected that Frank's father was a supporter of the government. Then he made such excuses for the Cabinet's blundering as he could. Miss Lentaigne also condemned the government, though less for its incurable habit for truckling to the forces of disorder in Ireland, than for its cowardly and treacherous treatment of women. She made no attempt to spare Frank's feelings. Indeed, she pointed many of her remarks ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... as if he was suppressing some emotion. He was rather a vacuous-looking young man—startlingly clean as to countenance and linen. He was shaven, and had he not been distinctly a gentleman, he might have been a groom. He apparently had a habit of thrusting forward his chin for the purpose of scratching it pensively with his forefinger. This elegant trick probably indicated bewilderment, or, at all events, a slight mystification—he had recourse to it now—on the question of ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... Bryan, "let us meet him;" and, as he spoke, they turned their steps towards him. As they met, Bryan, forgetting everything that had occurred, and influenced solely by the habit of former friendship and good feeling, extended his hand with an intention of clasping that of his old acquaintance, but the latter withdrew, and refused to meet this ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... have shaken Colonel Elliot's belief in the historicity of the ballad. His suspicions of Scott I cannot hope to remove, and they are very natural suspicions, due to Scott's method of editing ballads and habit of "giving them a cocked hat and a sword," as he did to stories which he heard; ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... the slaves, ready for dealing. He was turned sixty and grown careless in his talk, and he lived there with nine wives and ten strapping daughters. Sons did not thrive with him, somehow. In the matter of men he was short-handed, his habit being to entice seamen off the ships trading there to take service with him on the promise of marrying them up to his daughters. It looked like a good speculation, for the old man had money. But every one of the women was a widow, and the most of them widowed two deep. The climate ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Lady Harman had acquired the habit of reading and the habit of thinking over what she read, and from that it is an easy step to thinking over oneself and the circumstances of one's own life. The one ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... to moderate and an intelligence which was reasonably quick and responsive. I had, however, no educational precociousness; I did not read till I was nearly nine, and even then did not use the power of reading. The book habit did not come till I was twelve or thirteen-though then it came, as far as poetry was concerned, with a rush. By fifteen I had read all the older English poets and most of the new. In reading poetry I showed ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... murmurous with their rustling. They are good company, these lofty, graceful palms, and I had grown to feel a real affection for them, such as a man has for his dog. Like myself, they can not live and flourish long unless they see the ocean. Their habit has more tangible reason than mine; they are dependent on air and water for life. The greater the column of water that flows daily up their stems and evaporates from the leaves, the greater ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... go to making fun of my nose," the other retorted. "It's a good, honest nose, if it is big. And it never yet made a habit of sticking itself in other people's business. That's the way with all Griffin noses; they mind their ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... poltroon might have well been ashamed of the overweening fear which possessed me. In defense of which I may say, I believe it was due in large part to my great respect and fondness for de la Mora, as well as a deep consciousness of the justice of his cause. From long habit I looked first to my weapons, but for once felt ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... patient every two or three hours by an alarum clock. Give half a grain of opium at going to bed, or twice a day. Onions, garlic, slight chalybeates. Issues. Leeches applied once a fortnight or month to the hemorrhoidal veins to produce a new habit. Emetics after each period of haemoptoe, to promote expectoration, and dislodge any effused blood, which might by remaining in the lungs produce ulcers by its putridity. A hard bed, to prevent too sound sleep. A periodical emetic or cathartic once ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... and burst of triumphal music, but in a manner instantly felt to be more fitting to what was indeed a wonder, but a daily wonder for all that. At one and the same instant the rim of the sun appeared and the wildebeeste, after the sudden habit of his kind, made up his mind to go. He dropped his head and came thundering down past us at full speed. Straight to the west he headed, and so disappeared. We could hear the beat of his hoofs dying into the distance. He had gone like a Warder of the Morning whose task ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... she repeated it once more, and caught the ear of Mr. Clacton, as he issued from his room; and he repeated it a third time, giving it, as he was in the habit of doing with Mrs. Seal's phrases, a dryly humorous intonation. He was well pleased with the world, however, and he remarked, in a flattering manner, that he would like to see that phrase in large letters at the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... name's sake and awe toward thy chaste head, O holiest Atalanta, no man dares Praise thee, though fairer than whom all men praise, And godlike for thy grace of hallowed hair And holy habit of thine eyes, and feet That make the blown foam neither swift nor white Though the wind winnow and whirl it; yet we praise Gods, found because of thee adorable And for thy sake praiseworthiest from all men: Thee therefore we praise also, thee ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... holiday travellers the advantage of its long-established unity, its discipline, and its training, but embarkation and disembarkation are entirely outside its ordinary experience. It needs, therefore, being much accustomed to work by habit, to be prepared both for getting on board ship, and, still more, for getting off it, in the manner that will best enable it to fulfil its duties, and, as time is very precious, to do this with the least possible delay, both in order to play completely ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... melancholy Wilkeson. Two more clergymen with families, the County Judge, the local railroad agent, all the members of the Board of Freeholders, and several other people, who, according to the landlord of the United States Hotel, were highly influential in moulding public opinion, and were in the habit ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Miss Jasmine. It seems to have become a kind of habit, same as the smuts and the Sarah Janes. A swimming head is most certain the London style of head for a girl like me. Yes, I am sorry I can't go with you, Miss Jasmine, darling, but I can't this morning. I hope you will get safe to the City, miss, and that you will see the ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... Ostermaier, "but she has made the trousers of several suits wrong side before and opened them up the back, and men are such creatures of habit. They like things the way they ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... great fury, pouring out his horrid cries in quick succession. The hunter awaits his approach with his gun extended: if his aim is not sure, he permits the animal to grasp the barrel, and as he carries it to his mouth (which is his habit) he fires. Should the gun fail to go off, the barrel (that of the ordinary musket, which is thin) is crushed between his teeth, and the encounter soon proves fatal ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... I spoke to myself—a foolish habit," I rejoined, with a low bow and, I'm afraid, a rather malicious smile. The old lady glared at me, bobbed her head the slightest bit in the world, ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... Mr. Stoddard, somewhat embarrassed, "I don't happen to know the Wells Brothers—and I usually know men when I extend them a credit. This boy—Well, I'm not in the habit of dealing with boys." ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... him fear there would be no ride out with her that day. Their next meeting reassured him; she was dressed in her riding-habit, and wore a countenance resolutely cheerful. He gave himself the word of command to take his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... force him to do another to hide it, and another after that, till he becomes a confirmed rogue in spite of himself. Just as a man may run into debt once, so that he never gets out of debt again; just as a man may take to drink once, and the bad habit grow on him till he is a confirmed drunkard to his dying day. Just as a man may mix in bad company once, and so become entangled as in a net, till he cannot escape his evil companions, and lowers himself to their level ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Odd, too, that she should be receiving France at such an hour. And there were other things that struck him as odd. Lancaster's manner during their recent talk, for instance.... Francis Bullard had made the bulk of his fortune through unlikely happenings; it had become a habit with him to deal, as it were, in "off chances." At all events, he felt he would like to secure a sight of young France's face as the latter came from the house. It might tell him something. Before long he left the office and the City. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... one in which a man of his character might be expected to take a profound interest; though it should always be remembered that hardly anything is known of his relations with the other sex save that he took a keen and lifelong interest in the Foundling Hospital. But so strong had the habit of making masterpieces become with him that he could not resist the temptation to create just one more, even when he had nothing better than "Susanna" to base it on; just as a confirmed drunkard cannot resist the temptation ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... all flower lovers. It is easily grown, and may be had in bloom about four months in the year without the aid of glass. The blossoms are beautiful in form, and include a wonderful range of colors, with almost innumerable combinations. Its general habit of bearing two rows of flowers facing the same way makes it easy to arrange so as to show all to the best advantage. It has a capacity for taking up water which enables it to go on blooming to the very tip of the spike after being cut, ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... now the second personage in the Kingdom, as far as political power and authority were concerned, much was made of me. My raiment was of silks and velvets and cloth of gold, and by consequence was very showy, also uncomfortable. But habit would soon reconcile me to my clothes; I was aware of that. I was given the choicest suite of apartments in the castle, after the king's. They were aglow with loud-colored silken hangings, but the stone floors had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... other. 2. In a picture by Francia (Bologna Gal.), the Infant, reclining upon a white napkin, is adored by the kneeling Virgin, by St. Augustine, and by two angels also kneeling. The votary, Antonio Galeazzo Bentivoglio, for whom the picture was painted, kneels in the habit of a pilgrim.[1] He had lately returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, thus poetically expressed in the scene of the Nativity, and the picture was dedicated as an act of thanksgiving as well as of faith. St. Joseph ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... from the careless and the unscrupulous, I shall recommend improvements in the Food and Drug laws—strengthening inspection and standards, halting unsafe and worthless products, preventing misleading labels, and cracking down on the illicit sale of habit-forming drugs. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... affinity exists in foliation between Terebinthace and Sapindaceae. Also both in foliation, flowers, and habit, between Myrtaceae and Guttiferae, the only material differences being in aroma, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... recognition, from the fact that my general conclusion that acquired characters are not inherited is at variance with the opinion of his revered father, who aided his great theory by the retention of some remains of Lamarck's doctrine of the inherited effect of habit. I feel as if the son, as representative of his great progenitor, were carrying out the idea of an appreciative editor who writes to me: "We must say that if Darwin were still alive, he would find your arguments of great ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... he dexterously jumped into his hammock, rolling himself up like a worm in the blankets within; and, such was the facility of habit, I declare he was snoring like a grampus ere I had completed my dressing, although I scrambled into my clothes as quickly as I could, and hurried ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... made by the roughs to avenge the execution of their comrades. Whether they realized that such an attempt would be likely to solidify the decent element, or whether that sort of warfare was not their habit, the afternoon and ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... of the numbers of the killed and wounded; but for any picture of the scene on the decks of the defeated man-of-war, we must turn to such descriptions as have been left by eye-witnesses. Sailors are not much given to the habit of jotting down the descriptions of the many stirring scenes in which they play parts in their adventurous careers; and much that is romantic, much that is picturesque, and much that is of historic ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the bed—it was not Gypsy Nan's habit to undress—and blew out the light. But she could not sleep. And hour after hour in the darkness she tossed unrestfully. It was very strange! It was not as it had been last night. It was not the impotent, frantic ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... his supply of war implements. The royalists occupying Pamplona and neighboring towns evacuated their possessions upon learning of the defeat of the royalists of Cucuta. On sending communications to the governor of Cartagena, Bolivar dated them in the city of "Cucuta delivered" (libertada). His habit of adding the word "libertada" to the cities captured from the royalists contributed greatly to his later receiving the name of "Libertador," by which he is ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... I could get into the habit of giving chapter and verse for every fact and extract; but I am too lazy, and generally in a hurry, having to consult books against time, when in London for ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Temple-Bar; accordingly at the time appointed he went thither, but being unknown to them, and wanting Money, which to an ingenious spirit is the most daunting thing in the World, he peep'd in the Room where they were, which being espied by Ben. Johnson, and seeing him in a Scholars thredbare habit, John Bo-peep, says he, come in, which accordingly he did, when immediately they began to rime upon the meanness of his Clothes, asking him, If he could not make a Verse? and withal to call for his Quart of Sack; there being four of them, he ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... has allowed himself, I fear, will unsettle him. I look forward to next week with the same kind of anxiety I did to the first entrance at the new lodging. We have had, as you know, so many teasing anxieties of late, that I have got a kind of habit of foreboding that we shall never be comfortable, and that he will never settle to work: which I know is wrong, and which I will try with all my might to overcome—for certainly, if I could but see things as they really are, our prospects are considerably improved since the memorable day of Mrs. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... under the influence of that drink that animates the animal passions and asks not for the association of love, but the gratification of lust. Men do not go to the houses of ill-fame to meet women they love but oftener those they almost hate. The drink habit destroys in men the appreciation of a home life, and when a woman leaves all others for one man, she does, and should, expect his companionship, and is not satisfied without it. Libertines, taking advantage of this, select women whose husbands are neglectful, and he wins victims ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... stalwart communal life. In obedience to these instincts it had just emancipated itself from the ecclesiastical Prince and its ancient religious system; and the change thus accomplished was, though disguised in a religious habit, yet essentially political. For the council which abolished the bishop had made itself heir to his faculties and functions; it could only dismiss him as civil lord by dismissing him as the ecclesiastical head of Geneva, and in so doing it assumed the right to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... piece of bronze, I will at the same time turn you into a rich and able artist." This man had a splendid person and a most arrogant spirit, with the air of a great soldier more than a sculptor, especially in regard to his vehement gestures and his resonant voice, together with a habit he had of knitting his brows, enough to frighten any man of courage. He kept talking every day about his gallant feats among those beasts ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... habit of viewing pre-Christian times for the single biased purpose of only stating the aspects of that civilization which they deemed inferior to that exerted by Christianity. Researches have established fairly well the position of women in the Egyptian community of 4000 years ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... from such a prohibitive rate of usury as that mentioned above, Chinese merchants are in the habit of combining together and forming what are called Loan Societies for the mutual benefit of all concerned. Such a society may be started in the first instance by a deposit of so much per member, which sum, in the absence ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... "I dislike extremely that habit you have, Nora, of calling me mammy; mother is the word you should address your parent with. Please remember in future that I wish to ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... for the swamp, for Elizabeth Eliza, at the suggestion of the lady from Philadelphia, had advised them to hang some flags around the pillars of the piazza. Now the little boys knew of a place in the swamp where they had been in the habit of digging for "flag-root," and where they might find plenty of flag flowers. They did bring away all they could, but they were a little out of bloom. The boys were in the midst of nailing up all ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... that would be," said Margery. "They would get into the habit of thinking they couldn't do anything for themselves—that they could turn to someone else whenever ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... entangled. I have heard that a good merchant, though he has rich treasures deeply stored, appears as if he were poor, and that the superior man whose virtue is complete, is yet to outward seeming stupid. Put away your proud air and many desires, your insinuating habit and wild will [2]. These are of no advantage to you. This is all which I have to tell you.' On the other hand, Confucius is made to say to his disciples, 'I know how birds can fly, how fishes can swim, and how animals can run. But the runner may be snared, the ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... born at Fort Hamilton, and was the joy of us children, our pet and companion. My father would not allow his tail and ears to be cropped. When he grew up, he accompanied us everywhere and was in the habit of going into church with the family. As some of the little ones allowed their devotions to be disturbed by Spec's presence, my father determined to leave him at home on those occasions. So the next Sunday morning ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... missionary was called Stubbs; and by what mnemonic process Sir Felix converted this into Westmacott I have never been able to guess. However, for purposes of introduction that afternoon Westmacott he was and Westmacott he remained. Now Sir Felix, though not a very old man, has a rambling habit of speech, and tends in public discourse to forget alike the thread of his argument and the lapse of time. Conceive then our delight on his announcing that he would confine himself to ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... very far from being happy. Bertalda in particular, whenever she was in the slightest degree opposed in her wishes, attributed the cause to the jealousy and oppression of the injured wife. She was therefore daily in the habit of showing a haughty and imperious demeanour, to which Undine yielded with a sad submission; and which was generally encouraged strongly by the now ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... cure a chicken-killer." Judge Scott shook his head sadly at luncheon table, when his son narrated the lesson he had given White Fang. "Once they've got the habit and the taste of blood . . ." Again he ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... derived them. One of Borrow's most vivid records Mr. Gosse calls into question, and proves indisputably that it must henceforth be regarded, if not as a fiction, at least as one more result of Borrow's inveterate habit of "drawing the long bow,"—to wit the passages in Lavengro wherein Borrow recounts his acquisition of the "strange and uncouth-looking volume" at the price of a kiss from the yeoman's wife, and the purpose which that ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... article, in the nature of a book, that was to be found among the chattels of the squatter, and it had been preserved by his wife, as a melancholy relic of more prosperous, and possibly of more innocent, days. She had long been in the habit of resorting to it, under the pressure of such circumstances as were palpably beyond human redress, though her spirit and resolution rarely needed support under those that admitted of reparation through any of the ordinary means of reprisal. In this manner Esther had made ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... periodical fits of absence most edifying stories are still repeated by his friends, was an excellent and eloquent speaker, but in truth, there was often more sound than matter in his orations. He had a habit of lending emphasis to his arguments by violently beating with his clenched hand the bar before which he pleaded. Once when stating a case to Lord Polkemmet, with great energy of action, his lordship interposed, and exclaimed, "Maister Jemmy, dinna dunt; ye think ye're duntin't ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... just estimation may be judged, even worse than the former; as doing to our neighbour more heavy and more irreparable wrong. For it imposeth on him really more blame, and that such which he can hardly shake off: because the charge signifieth habit of evil, and includeth many acts; then, being general and indefinite, can scarce be disproved. He, for instance, that calleth a sober man drunkard, doth impute to him many acts of such intemperance (some ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... was the growing habit of carelessness, which would be of great harm to her all her life. It would make her unhappy, ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... am not in the habit of being kissed. Such an event can only happen in the most exceptional and privileged circumstances—such, for example, as exist at the present moment, when I ask you to put yourself to some considerable trouble—if not actually ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... stubbornly loyal to the last, to be killed or taken prisoner. The more experienced of his centurions disapproved of this policy and would have told him the truth, if they had been consulted. But the emperor's intimates refused them admittance. He had, indeed, formed a habit of regarding wholesome advice as unpleasant, and refusing to listen to any that was not agreeable, and in ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... put on the rest of the Episcopal habit; and kneeling down, Veni, Creator Spiritus, shall be sung or said over him, the [Primus] beginning, and the Bishops, with others that are present, answering by ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... would probably have found it difficult or impossible to retain his high place, even if he had had nothing more to contend with than domestic jealousy and dissatisfaction. Fordun relates that many of the nobility were in the habit of saying, "We will not have this man to rule over us." Meanwhile the energetic English king, who had been abroad when the defeat of Stirling Bridge lost him Scotland, had now returned home, and was already ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... sister, Mary Tatham, who was his father's nurse and attendant, and never had any chance of sharing these delights. She made all the more, as was natural, of John's privileges and social success from the fact of her own seclusion, and was in the habit of saying that she believed there was scarcely a party in London to which John was not invited—three or four in a night. But it would seem with all this that there were many parties to which he was not invited, for the Phil Comptons (how strange and on the whole disgusting to think that this now ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... in carrying out his engagements with publishers and editors, so that he did not always get the money he counted on. Yet he worked hard. His habit, at this time, was to go to bed at six in the evening and sleep till twelve, and after, to rise and write for nearly twelve hours at a stretch, imbibing coffee as a stimulant through these spells of composition. What recreation he took in Paris was at the theatre or at the houses of ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... stood silent. The habit of giving way to others, of letting the youngsters have all the pleasure possible, and taking the workaday parts of life for himself, was strong upon him. And when had he ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... proposition, and the man's cool impudence in making it, so astonished me that I could hardly speak. At last, however, I found words to inform him that none of our party were in the habit of sleeping with each other, and that the arrangement was such as we were not at all inclined to submit to. The gentleman, apparently very much surprised at our singular habits, said, "Oh! he didn't know that the ladies were not acquainted" ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... ten hours and a half we arrived without further mishaps at Lajas at 9.30 P.M., the middle of the night in that part of the world. One of my men, who had a habit of singing whenever we entered a village, had been ordered to keep silent, that the people in this lonely place, susceptible as they are, might not become alarmed at the sudden ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... like their Moorish neighbours; they therefore masticate it only. Their physiognomy is very interesting and animated; their features are regular; large black expressive eyes; a ready wit, poetic fancy, expressing themselves in poetic effusions, in which, from constant habit, some of them have become such adepts, that they with facility speak extempore poetry; those who are unable to 206 converse in this manner are less esteemed. Their evening amusements consist in dancing and music, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... this is he; softly a while; Let us not break in upon him. O change beyond report, thought, or belief! See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused With languished head unpropt, As one past hope, abandoned, And by himself given over, In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds O'er-worn and soiled. Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he, That heroic, that renowned, Irresistible Samson? whom unarmed No strength of man or fiercest wild beast could withstand; Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid; Ran on embattled armies clad in iron, And, weaponless ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... incautious moment yesterday Mr. TENNANT advised Mr. SNOWDEN to use his imagination. I should have thought the advice was superfluous, for, to judge by some of the stories that the Member for Blackburn is in the habit of retailing to the House regarding the persecution of conscientious objectors by callous N.C.O.'s, his imagination is working overtime. On the motion for the adjournment Mr. TENNANT had to listen to several more of them. He was rewarded for his patience by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... at the end of Lacy's The Old Troop (31 July, 1668), we have 'a dance of two hobby horses in armour, and a Jig.' Also shortly before the epilogue in Shadwell's The Sullen Lovers (1668) we read, 'Enter a Boy in the habit of Pugenello and traverses the stage, takes his chair and sits down, then ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... and when the bitter draught was fairly swallowed, Marian was laid down and covered and caressed with a tenderness that struck Graeme as strange; for though Janet loved them all well, she was not in the habit of showing her tenderness by caresses. In a little, Marian slept. Janet did not resume her work immediately, but sat gazing at her with eyes as full of wistful tenderness as ever a mother's could have been. At length, with a sigh, she turned to ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... up for lights in the night time, and thus burned to death. For these spectacles Nero gave his own gardens, and, at the same time, exhibited there the diversions of the circus; sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; and, at other times, driving a chariot himself; until at length these men, though really criminal, and deserving of exemplary punishment, began to be commiserated, as people who were destroyed, not out ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... surprised me, no swearing, such as I had been accustomed to hear on the Hard. Captain Finlay would not allow it, and the mate supported him in checking any wrong expressions which some of the men had been in the habit of uttering. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... that some man did not break loose, shaking his fist at the sky, or at the weigh-boss—behind the latter's back. He might gather a knot of fellow-grumblers about him; it was to be noted that the camp-marshal had the habit of being on hand at ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... kept him as he was at first. He was more amusing. But the aspirations of Johnson's soul were too much for us. I used to give him money sometimes—he was sure to do something if he got drunk that was worth writing up—and so he got into the habit of coming to our newspaper office whenever he felt the need of more cash. He did n't ask for anything, and he always made you feel that he was doing you a great favor in accepting any stray chicken-feed you might have about your clothes. He just sat ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... the Deity, but accepted Carnot's cycle, and he had read Shakespeare and found him weak in chemistry. His helper came out of the mysterious East, and his name was Azuma-zi. But Holroyd called him Pooh-bah. Holroyd liked a nigger help because he would stand kicking—a habit with Holroyd—and did not pry into the machinery and try to learn the ways of it. Certain odd possibilities of the negro mind brought into abrupt contact with the crown of our civilisation Holroyd never fully realised, though just at the end he ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... The habit of praying about everything is characteristic of the Elf, and more than once her uninstructed little soul has grieved over the strange way our prayers are sometimes answered. One day she came rushing in full of excitement. "Oh, may I go and be examined? The Government Missie Ammal is going to ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael |
