"Lief" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... learned anything to confirm him in his noble resolutions, is uncertain; but we have still extant an historical manuscript, written at all events before the year 1395, that is to say, one hundred years prior to Columbus' voyage, which contains a minute account of how a certain person named Lief, while sailing over to Greenland, was driven out of his course by contrary winds, until he found himself off an extensive and unknown coast, which increased in beauty and fertility as he descended south, and how, in consequence of the representation Lief made on his return, successive expeditions ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... the old gardener, wiping his mouth in anticipation. "It's my b'lief, Peter, as that there boy'll turn out either a reg'lar good un, or 'bout ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... don't care, anyway. I'm deucedly proud of your mother,—I mean of my wife,—and I'd just as lief throw up the whole society business and go off and ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... Don't lay a-stern, you dog," pulling me forward. My grandfather (who was laid up with the gout) received this relation, after his long absence, with that coldness of civility which was peculiar to him; told him he was glad to see him, and desired him to sit down. "Thank ye, thank ye, sir, I had as lief stand," said my uncle; "for my own part, I desire nothing of you; but, if you have any conscience at all, do something for this poor boy, who has been used at a very unchristian rate. Unchristian do I call it? I am sure the Moors in Barbary have more humanity ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... as lief walk a little piece. I'm kind of beat, though. We've got the threshers day after to-morrow. ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... spirit. For he began to worry, and almost at once it influenced his playing. He found himself growing watchful of his comrades and fearful of what they might be doing. He caught himself being ashamed of his suspicions. He would as lief have cut off his hand as break his promise to the coach. Perhaps, however, he exaggerated his feeling and sense of duty. He remembered the scene in Dale's room the night he refused to smoke and drink; how Dale had commended his refusal. Nevertheless, he gathered ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... —I would as lief use that as any other dictionary, but I don't want it. When a word comes up fit to end a line with I can feel all the rhymes in the language that are fit to go with it without naming them. I have tried them all so many times, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... if you've counted on more.' A flush ran up into his face and his eyes were inscrutable. He was conscious of being in the absurd mood to note trifles; John had come with his memoranda, John had meant to ask him for the money. 'I'd just as lief pay twenty-five hundred extra now as at any time.' And with lowered head and sputtering pen he wrote ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... needle-cases were delivered. Both gave the most entire satisfaction. Mrs. Chauncey assured her daughter that she would quite as lief have a yellow as a red rose on the cover, and that she liked the inscription extremely, which the little girl acknowledged to have been a joint device of her own and Ellen's. Ellen's bag gave great delight, and was ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Benjamin. You might know that I should never give my consent to that. I should almost as lief bury you. And how can you want to leave your good home, and all your friends, to live in a ship, exposed to storms and ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... Langdon rose. It irritated me to see her color under that indifferent fascinating smile of his. It irritated me to note that he held her hand all the time he was saying good-by, and the fact that he held it as if he'd as lief not be holding it hardly lessened my longing to rush in and knock him down. What he did was all in the way of perfect good manners, and would have jarred no one not supersensitive, like me—and like his wife. I saw that ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... is bad enough following the opera. All that one wishes to do in one case is to look, just as in the other case all one wishes to do is to listen. We would as lief try to think out the full meaning of a Browning poem in the pleasure it gave us, as to mix our joy in the opera or the ballet with any ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... does when it ain't mixed with a little common sense. You'd oughta see that fella's anticks when his mother, an' Lord Ronald, ain't by. He'd raise the hair offn your head, if you hadn't a spear of it there to begin with. He speaks to the help as if they was dirt under his feet, an' he'd as lief lie as look at you, an' always up to some new devilment. It'd take your time to think fast enough to keep up with'm. But he ain't all bad—I don't believe no child is, not on your life, an' my idea is, he'd turn ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... always very friendly, making much of me, and talking to me as though I were his equal; which was due, I think, to there being no one of his own knowledge in the neighbourhood, and so he had as lief talk to an ignorant boy as to an ignorant man. After we had passed the churchyard turnstile and were crossing the sludgy meadows, I asked him again what he knew of Blackbeard and his ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... seems to have been a bitter enemy of Smith, had no sooner attained this place of power, than he set to work to ruin the adventurous captain. "Being settled in his authority", he "sought to call Master Smythes lief in question, and ... indicted him upon a Chapter in Leviticus for the death" of two men under his charge, that had been murdered by the Indians. He was to have had his trial upon the very day of his return from his thrilling adventures with the savages. His conviction and immediate execution ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... that all hearts united in loving him and the wise flocked to him for counsel; whilst the subjects used to pray for his long life, because he was a compendium of the best qualities, encouraging the good and lief, and preventing evil and mischief. But the Wazir Mu'in bin Sawi on the contrary hated folk [FN4] and loved not the good and was a mere compound of ill; even as was ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... must have been great fun—once. Nowadays one would as lief be a Strasburg goose. When you and I went to school it was not quite so bad. True, neither of us could now extract a cube root with a stump puller, and it is sad to reflect how little call life has made for duodecimals. Sometimes ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... everything and ran to the south windows. I tell you I was proud of our big white team as it came prancing down the hill, and the gleaming patent leather trimmings, and the brass side lamps shining in the sun. Father sat very straight, driving rather fast, as if he would as lief get it over with, and instead of riding on the back seat, where mother always sat, the teacher was in front beside him, and she seemed to be talking constantly. We looked at each other and groaned when father stopped at the hitching post and got ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... just as lief be a farmer as anything else," said Mr. Haye, "if I had happened to be born in that line. It's as good a way ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... misery inexpressibly more bitter, the poor wretch passed many a lonely day and wakeful night in a kind of powerless despair and rage against his iniquitous fortune. It was the softest hand that struck him, the gentlest and most compassionate nature that persecuted him. "I would as lief," he said, "have pleaded guilty to the murder, and have suffered for it like any other felon, as have to endure the torture to which my mistress ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he envied that other men should more achieve in middle-earth of fame under heaven than he himself. — "Art thou that Beowulf, Breca's rival, who emulous swam on the open sea, when for pride the pair of you proved the floods, and wantonly dared in waters deep to risk your lives? No living man, or lief or loath, from your labor dire could you dissuade, from swimming the main. Ocean-tides with your arms ye covered, with strenuous hands the sea-streets measured, swam o'er the waters. Winter's storm rolled the rough waves. In realm of sea a sennight strove ye. In ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... Neversink, I was repeatedly struck by the lack of patriotism in many of my shipmates. True, they were mostly foreigners who unblushingly avowed, that were it not for the difference of pay, they would as lief man the guns of an English ship as those of an American or Frenchman. Nevertheless, it was evident, that as for any high-toned patriotic feeling, there was comparatively very little—hardly any of it—evinced ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer's, had handed the lady out of the coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a button, and had such a sweet, pretty mouth that Dominicus would almost as lief have heard a love-tale from it as a ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... worth quoting, and never did anything that any other equally good and sensible man would not have done in their place. I have a huge respect for them. I can never myself attain to their excellence. Yet I would as lief spend my life as an omnibus ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... may be deduced that Mrs. Ross was not so far wrong when she thought her husband was threatened with gout, only his malaise was more of the mind. He was thinking of the interview that awaited him on the morrow. 'I would as lief cut off my right hand as tell him that he must not have Audrey,' he said to himself, as he laid his head ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of plans now. We'll talk it all over in the morning when I am back. You'll be safe here. Nat would as lief shoot Hebby or anyone else who trailed you. Supper's on ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... weal upsprang Of the offspring of Scyld in the parts of the Scede-lands. Such wise shall a youngling with wealth be a-working 20 With goodly fee-gifts toward the friends of his father, That after in eld-days shall ever bide with him, Fair fellows well-willing when wendeth the war-tide, Their lief lord a-serving. By praise-deeds it shall be That in each and all kindreds a man shall have thriving. Then went his ways Scyld when the shapen while was, All hardy to wend him to the lord and his warding: Out then did they bear him to the side of the sea-flood, The dear fellows of ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... my bones crushed, just for the sake of giving you the job of mending them," said the old lady. "I'd as lief shake paws with a grizzly bear. You are getting to look rather like one, my poor James. I've always told you that if you would only shave, you might have a better chance—but never mind about that now. You were wanting to ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... commended Smith. "If I had to have my leg took off I'd just as lief have that man do it as any doctor I ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... would reply, "You see this work is promised; and if I am rich, I must keep my word. And then the habits of a lifetime are not to be given up in a day. And, to be honest with you, friends, I am in no haste to make the change. I love my work, and would as lief be sitting on this stool as anywhere else in ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... she wer goin' to have the cap'en up on court-martial, an' the steward tarred and feathered, an' the Lord knows what! Then, too, ther wer that b'y of hern, squalling like a frog in a fit, the durned young imp, I'd lief have skinned him! If it hadn't been for your gal, they'd have raised thunder aboard, they would: you oughter be kinder proud, mister, to hev sich a sensible young woman fur yer darter! She warn't a bit skeart when the shock came; but ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... little life had she been in such a strait as this. She cried so loud that her voice was heard above the storm, in unearthly shrieks. She didn't want to die! O, it was so nice to be alive! She would as lief have the sore throat all the time, if she might only be alive. She said not a word, but the thoughts flew through her mind like a flock of startled swallows,—not one after another, but all together; and so fast that they almost took her ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... liberty is interfered with, I cannot see that it helps me much to reflect that a nation, or "the nation," is not a "sand-heap," but is "an organic being." The oppression is the matter; and I had as lief be oppressed by a sand-heap as by an organic being. What I object to is being oppressed by either of them. And, whatever may be in the future, when men get to be something different from what they are, so far in the history of the world ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... as lief do that, as do anything else. Good jobs is scarce, out here in the wilderness, and when a body lights of one, he ought to profit by it. I come up here thinkin' to meet you, for I heer'n tell from ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... the man, 'I am Sir Eliot of the March Tower, and I have ill tidings for my master, King Uriens, and his friends, but it seems my news is no worse than their fate. If my great lord is to die, I would lief die with him. Therefore, lord, despatch me now, or let me go stand beside my lord in the ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... that," said the mountain boy, gravely. "I told you I'd just as lief shake hand as fight.... But just now I've got to go to ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... lief," said Eunice, going to the bow, and putting her fingers in her ears, and burying her ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... unadulterated bliss. When Warde said to Caesar, "Well, Desmond, how do you like ordering about your slave?" Desmond replied, ruefully, "Well, sir, little Duff has broken my inkstand, spilt the ink on our new carpet, and let Verney's bullfinch escape. I think, on the whole, I'd as lief ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... auxiliary had seems sometimes to be used before the infinitive to form the potential imperfect or pluperfect: as, "He that loses by getting, had better lose than get."—Penn's Maxims. "Other prepositions had better have been substituted."— Priestley's Gram., p. 166. "I had as lief say."—LOWTH: ib., p. 110. "It compels me to think of that which I had rather forget."— Bickersteth, on Prayer, p. 25. "You had much better say nothing upon the subject."—Webster's Essays, p. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... no haste called for; if it was not that I am so anxious to see mother, I would as lief spend ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... never contradict the story, though, to be sure, Laura herself always did, whenever she had a chance to do so. Indeed, she was often heard to declare, with great vehemence and apparent sincerity, that she would as lief be buried alive as marry that living skeleton,—by which scandalous epithet she designated the lean and reverend youth from East Windsor. Some people who heard these protestations let them go for naught, giving them all the less heed on account of their violence, or, perhaps, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his scoutmaster had the effect of directing his ambling course to that officer's presence, on which detour, he might encounter new adventures. To reach his troop's cabin he would have to pass the cooking shack where a doughnut might be speared with a stick. All was for the best. He would as lief go to ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... you have me! More especially as I had as lief go without my breakfast as without my newspaper; but, then, I can tell you, that there were things all the time happening there on the frontier, that many a newspaper editor would have given his scissors and easy chair to have got ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... de ceiv'er thieve ag grieve' bre vier' de ceit'ful ceiled a piece' de ceive' dis sei'zin pieced con ceit' re lief' a chiev'ing sheik be lieve' ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... when he was in the madhouse, where he dug in the garden, and Johnson added: "I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as with any one else. Another charge was that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it." When Boswell paid Johnson his memorable first visit in 1763, Smart had recently been released from Bedlam, and Johnson naturally spoke of him. He said: "My poor friend Smart ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... lief be at home with my Aunt Harry," said Dolly, looking lovingly at the book-case. But Christina turned ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Henry," she said, at last; "you've bin awful patient all these years. Fur's I'm concerned, I'd as lief stay here's anywhere, but if you want to go t' New York, I—I—want ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... they are frank and truthful and animated by spontaneous passion and pervaded by the quality of beauty. I hate the vulgar sexual intriguer, man or woman, and the smart and shallow atmosphere of unloving lust and vanity about the type as I hate few kinds of human life; I would as lief have a polecat in my home as this sort of person; and every sort of prostitute except the victim of utter necessity I despise, even though marriage be the fee. But honest lovers should be I think a charge and pleasure for us. We must judge each ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... man that loved to stick round home as much as any cat you ever see in your life. He used to say he'd as lief have a tooth pulled as go away anywheres. Always got sick, he said, when he went away, and never sick when he didn't. Pretty nigh killed himself goin' about lecterin' two or three winters,—talkin' in cold country lyceums,—as he used to say,—goin' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... that knows what France was two or three hundred years ago—show you some day in the 'Album'—about as lief be descended from a good deal of that peasantry as from a good deal of that nobility? I should smile! Why, my dear—friend, the day's coming when the Acadians will be counted as good French blood as there is in Louisiana! They're the only white people that ever trod this continent—island ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Society? Did he not travel (and he had a free hand) at their charges? Was he not befriended by our minister at Madrid, Mr. Villiers, subsequently Earl of Clarendon in the peerage of England? It must be true: and yet at this moment I would as lief read a chapter of the 'Bible in Spain' as I would 'Gil Bias'; nay, I positively would give the preference to Senor Giorgio. Nobody can sit down to read Borrow's books without as completely forgetting himself as if he were a boy in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... reflected De Forest. "Still, upon my word, I think I would as lief be conceited in every pore as eternally in a state of dissatisfaction with myself about ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... well enough that I am not to travel with my young lady on her journey," she said; "but, so far as her way lies toward London, I am going. My sister wants me there, and I do just as lief be in a tomb as stay at Oakhurst when Lady Clara is away. So, as she is willing, I shall just leave her at the junction, and go up to London. That I can do in spite of the crabbed old thing at Houghton, who wants her at first all ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... repeating that, they were encouraged to ask from God whatever they wanted, and were never reproved, however strange or incongruous their supplications might be. Saunders simply told them that if what they asked was not for their good they would not get it—a fact which, he said, "they had as lief ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... want to make out the truth about ghos'es: I know it a'ready. But I'm not against a bet—everything fair and open. Let any man bet me ten pound as I shall see Cliff's Holiday, and I'll go and stand by myself. I want no company. I'd as lief do it as I'd fill ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... to make it up with Carlisle. I have refused every body else, but I can't deny her any thing;—so I must e'en do it, though I had as lief 'drink up Eisel—eat a crocodile.' Let me see—Ward, the Hollands, the Lambs, Rogers, &c. &c.—every body, more or less, have been trying for the last two years to accommodate this couplet quarrel to no purpose. I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... mistake, old man, in calling savage blood human blood, at all. I think no more of a red-skin's scalp than I do of a pair of wolf's ears; and would just as lief finger money for the one as for the other. With white people 't is different, for they've a nat'ral avarsion to being scalped; whereas your Indian shaves his head in readiness for the knife, and leaves a lock of hair by way of braggadocio, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... "I would as lief go there as anywhere else, my lady. Indeed, men say that it is a fine city, and as I have never seen a bigger town than Southampton, I doubt not that I shall find plenty to interest me at times when you may not ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... the exclamation. She resented his future ownership of her shop. She thought he was come to play the landlord, and she determined to let him see that her mood was independent and free, that she would as lief give up the business as keep it. In particular she meant to accuse him of having deliberately deceived her as to his intentions on his ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... ye did that," said Dick, and sighed again at the mere recollection. "Nay, sir, saving your respect, I had as lief 'a' met the devil in person; and to speak truth, I am yet all a-quake. But what made ye, sir, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the old Croghan house. What it lacks in elegance of appointment it gains in hospitality. If we had a dish of tea to brew for you gentlemen we would do it; but Indian willow makes a vile and bitter tea, and I had as lief go tealess, as I do and expect to continue until our husbands teach the Tory King ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... sooth. I'd lief you could say the same of her master. I wouldn't live with Master Benden for ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... Rabbit got dem fishes. Brer Rabbit 'ny it up en down, but Brer Wolf stan' to it dat Brer Rabbit got dem fishes. Brer Rabbit, he say dat if Brer Wolf b'leeve he got de fishes, den he give Brer Wolf lief fer ter kill de bes' cow he got. Brer Wolf, he tuck Brer Rabbit at his word, en go off ter de pastur' en drive up de cattle en kill ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... well the site whereof thou are in search; but I hold thee dear in that thou hast been of service to me; and I am loath for thine own sake to tell thee where to find that stead." And the Prince rejoined, "Say me, O Fakir, why dost thou withhold this knowledge from me, and wherefore art thou not lief to let me learn it?" Replied the other, "'Tis a hard road to travel and full of perils and dangers. Besides thyself many have come hither and have asked the path of me, and I refused to tell them, but they heeded not my ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Ydo Carrothers. She spent the whole time this morning telling me how charming and fascinating Ydo was and what a fillip she gave to life. I told her frankly that I had been very thoroughly acquainted with Miss Ydo Carrothers from her youth up, and that she would be a handful for any one. I'd as lief undertake to chaperone a cyclone. She only chuckled in that disagreeable way of hers and spoke of Wilfred's admiration for that Gipsy. When, Robert—you see I was able to say it that time—when every one ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... the way the land lies, does it!" observed Wagner, grimly. "You believe this job was the work of Mechanicsburg boys; do you? Well, I think differently, that's all. But if it turned out to be my best chum I'd just as lief thump him as not. I'd be ashamed to own a chum who would be guilty of such a trick. I'd never look at a prize won under such conditions, without ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Fairfax's position is changed, Cecil. A good connexion and a good dower are one thing, and an heiress presumptive to Kirkham is another. Perhaps you would as lief remain ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... lout shook among his straw to such an extent that I bade him for God's dear sake to bide still, otherwise we might as lief lie in a barn among ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... also not to dispost my hoste at Newark, Jone of Kelsterne. This I pray you partly for his awyn sake quhame I tho't ane gude fellow, and partly at request of such as I dare not refuse. And thus I take my lief shortly at you now, and my lang lief when God pleases, committing you to the protection of the Almighty. At Stirling, xxv. day of August, 1577.—Yours to ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... this sort, and was determined to make a kind of war upon the doctrine which seemed to underlie it. He said in effect that if he could not be restored to the pristine condition which he felt to be slipping from him he would as lief ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut! She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow, Running amuck with horns well set to butt: Nathless I've locked her in the stall below: She's blown with grass, I tell you, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... abuse that has been heaped upon him, as a renegade and traitor, is probably undeserved. It does not appear that he ever made any pretence of love for the Puritan commonwealth, and there were many like him who had as lief be ruled by king as by clergy. But it cannot be denied that his suppleness and sagacity went along with a moral nature that was weak and vulgar. Joseph Dudley was essentially a self-seeking politician and courtier, like his famous ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... wife; an' he said he was more glad than sorry, an', says he, she'd better get her bonnet, t' go aboard an' get married right away. An' she 'lowed she didn't want no bonnet, but would like to change her pinny. So we said we'd as lief wait a spell, though a clean pinny wasn't needed. An' when she got back, the cook said he 'lowed the skipper could marry un well enough 'til we over-hauled a real parson; an' she thought so, too, for, says she, 'twouldn't be ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... "I would as lief they didnae see me. There's bad folk everywhere, and what's far worse, weak ones. So when it comes dark again, I will steal down into that clachan, and set this that I have been making in the window of a good friend of mine, John Breck ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as well be dead at once, or mad, or a man, as have cropped hair during all the days of her youth.' I had a fellow-feeling, you see! I have magnificent hair myself, child, as Clayton well knows, for it is her chief trouble on earth, and I would almost as lief die as lose it." ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... no deceiving a woman's intuition. Yes, I was not speaking quite honestly when I pretended I had as lief go into the Hesperides as to Tir-nam-Beo: it was wrong of me, and I ask your pardon. I thought that by affecting indifference I could manage you better. But you saw through me at once, and very rightly became angry. So I fling my cards upon the table, I no longer ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... 103: That is, the page is to greet the lady as many times as there are knots in nets for the hair (kell), or merchants going to dear (leeve, lief) London, or thoughts of the heart, or schoolmasters in all schoolhouses. These multiplied and comparative greetings are common in folk-lore, particularly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... parlour?' 'All right,' I says, with a wink, 'but the tap for me, if you please. That's my place, and I'd like to see if I can get any news of the whereabouts of the lads as are sticking up all round, because, if they're one way, I'd as lief be another.' 'All right,' says he. So in I goes, and sits down. There was nobody there but one man, drunk under the bench. And I has two noblers of brandy, and one of Old Tom; no, two Old Toms it was, and a brandy; when in comes an old chap ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... fence, en he keep on dis a-way twel 'pariently Brer Rabbit dunner w'at ter do. All dis time Brer Fox keep on foolin' wid de tater-patch, en w'en he see w'ich Brer Rabbit aint makin' no motion, Brer Fox 'low dat he done skeer'd sho' 'nuff, en dat de time done come fer ter gobble him up bidout lief er license. So he call on Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox did, en he ax 'im will he take a walk. Brer Rabbit, he ax wharbouts. Brer Fox say, right out yander. Brer Rabbit, he ax w'at is dey right out yander? Brer Fox say he know whar dey some mighty fine peaches, en he want Brer Rabbit fer ter go 'long ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... the glory, and all that sort of thing, I'd as lief have let it alone, if it was to cost a bullet through me, Muster Merry," he answered. "But I'd have been main glad if the mounseers had just shot me instead of you. It wouldn't have done me no ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Mr. Grasper, it is all the same to me," replied Layton, indifferently. "I had as lief have your note as ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... I would see that he had a decent burial, and would attend to anything he wanted me to do. He said there wasn't anything, for it could make no difference to him what became of his body after his death, and for his part he would as lief the ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... Him and do my part in the church, before Lizzie's mother died. But when a man gets on in years it isn't easy for him to come out before the world and do as he ought. I hope it will be all right, and as I told Jacob the other day, when the time does come for me to be judged I'd full as lief be standing on the same platform with old David Fleming as with most any of the professors ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Knab' ein Rslein stehn, Rslein auf der Heiden, War so jung und morgenschn, Lief er schnell, es nah zu sehn, Sah's mit vielen Freuden. 5 Rslein, Rslein, Rslein rot, Rslein auf ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... rendering true answer, as beseem'd Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bade thee, watch, and ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... borrowing from chests, and seem, from scattered hints, to have been a very fruitful source of litigation and dispute."[2] Most of these books were in the hands of seniors. Truly enough many a poor clerk would as lief have twenty "bokes" to his name as anything else treble the value. But he would undergo much sharp self-denial and receive much "wherewith to scoleye" ere he got together so considerable a collection of "bokes grete and smale," ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... "I'd as lief speak to 'ee here, in the passage. Indeed I'd rather," said Mrs Penhaligon as he emerged, trowel in hand. "Well, what ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... 'I'd as lief that it hadn't been,' said Jim Clarke. 'If the pa'son should see him a trespassing here in his tower, 'twould be none the better for we, seeing how 'a do hate chapel-members. He'd never buy a tub of us again, and he's as good a customer as we have ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... "Dunno. Jes as lief be stuck with a bagonet as shot by a file of soldiers," answered Tom, to whom the future looked even ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... just as lief? Well, I don't s'pose you would be afraid now, after I've been there with ye to show you there wasn't nothin' nor nobody there, an' I 'low I'd ought to be back soon's I ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... done nought nor said nought; it's all other folk's doing and saying, so I dunna see as I've sinned. And I never could abear 'ee,' Hazel cried; 'I'd as lief you was dead ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... in the "Voyage of the 'Astrolabe'." Between it and the volcano on the eastern side of New Zealand, lies Brimstone Island, which from the high temperature of the water in the crater, may be ranked as active (Berghaus "Vorbemerk," II Lief. S. 56). Malte Brun, volume xii., page 231, says that there is a volcano near port St. Vincent in New Caledonia. I believe this to be an error, arising from a smoke seen on the OPPOSITE coast by Cook ("Second Voyage," volume ii., page 23) which smoke went out at ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... will saye in your Lordship's behalfe that the Countesse is a sharpe and bitter shrewe, and therefore licke enough to shorten your lief, if shee should kepe yow company, Indeede, my good Lord, I have heard some say so; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may be a juste cause of separation between a man and wiefe, I thinck fewe men in Englande would keepe their wives longe; for it is a common jeste, yet trewe ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Suppose I loved you yet! Suppose I hated my fate! What can I do? I am broken by the war. I have lost everything almost. I had as lief be dead and done ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... think how mean it was of Frank to try to get him out of the club; how hypocritical he was, to treat him as a friend when he meant to injure him. It did not occur to him that Tim had told a falsehood, though it was generally believed that he had as lief tell a lie as ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... comes to that, Jim," replied Watterly, who was meek only in the presence of his wife, "I'd just as lief speak against her as wink if there was anything to say. But I say now, as I said to you at first, she aint one of the common sort. I thought well of her at first, and I think better of her now since she's doing ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... said Jenny, when at last the hay cart disappeared from view, and the noise and dust had somewhat subsided. Then as she saw the tears in Mary's eyes, she added, "Oh, I wouldn't care if they did teaze me about Billy Bender. I'd as lief be teazed about ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... vnderstand what is said, geve vnto yow the discretion of spirittes, and so reull yow in all your actlonis and interprisis that in yow GOD may be glorified, His church edified, and ye your self as a livelie member of the sam[e] may be an exempill and mirroure of vertew and of godlie Lief till others. ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... at home,' said Baird, 'I had as lief stay here as where a man is not free to fight out his own feud. Even this sackless callant thought it shame to see ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... answered Whopper. "Maybe the boat will go next. Say, I'd just as lief be at home in ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... and Dotty's black eyes flashed. "I'd just as lief live in Berwick, to be sure; but I do love to visit in New York and ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... perplexity kept the merchant dumb for some moments. He would quite as lief have been confronted with a robber, ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... conciliatory tone. "Nothing is gained by being techy. And my inquiry is not unreasonable. You are an entire stranger to me; my sister has known you but for a few weeks, and is a young and inexperienced girl into the bargain. You tell me you are a gentleman. Sir! I had as lief you said you were a blacksmith. In this grand country of ours, where progress is the watchword, effete standards and dogging traditions must go by the board. Grit is of more use to us than gentility. Each single bricklayer ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... "I guess I'll take a chair and wait. My husband has a small bill agin him, and I thought maybe he'd just as lief pay it now ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... reverence, I care not if ye take King, crown, and commonalty, so ye leave me the ruling of my house and the freedom to wash my face how I will. I had as soon see England linked again with the Papists as the Schmalkaldners; I had as lief see the King married to you as another; I had as lief all men do what they will so they leave me to go my ways and ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... spoken young genl'man, and I'd lief have a chat we ye," answered the countryman; "my name is John Hodge, and I live in Lowley Bottom; ye knows where ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... purpose of finding how the drug which he has administered works, with a view to future operations on Edwin. Durdles is now in such a state that "he deems the ground so far below on a level with the tower, and would as lief walk off the tower into ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... slight difference in his mind between her and a bona fide intelligent child was proved by that fact that he would just as lief that Philip had not interrupted them just then: though the interruption was done with all ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... not dead and I 'm not dying, though I 'd just as lief die as to keep on working in this dark, damp, unpleasant winter, or spring, or whatever they call it; and as for being past blooming, I would just like to show her, if it was n't so much trouble! How ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... would lief you could truly call me such, but when young Miss came here first I took her for one of that flighty sort that it is wise not to meddle with more than needful. I have kept my place here these thirty years by never making or meddling, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you'd jes ez lief, I'll say 'Marmion.' I was learned it at school." Throwing off his cap and striking ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... circumlocutory antics in the human stomach, and the other in the government Bureaux at Washington. The worm that feeds on the cold meat of humanity, although the most insignificant of reptiles, has one attribute of Diety. It is no respecter of persons, and would as lief pick a bone in a royal vault as in POTTER'S Field. All flesh is the same to it—unless saturated with carbolic acid. It is said that all living things are propagated—that the process of creation ceased ages ago; yet it is quite certain that the worms known as maggots may be created by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but, if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... neighbors' business, I know," added Mrs. Green, a little tartly; "but I can't look on and see such meanness without speaking of it. It don't make no difference who I say it to, neither; I had just as lief say it to Captain Littleton, as say it to you and your mother. That is just what I think, and I may just as well speak it ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... will, my boy, and you shall write them down," said the old woman; "for it's a good drink, and none the worse, it may be, for not making you live forever. I sometimes think I had as lief go to heaven as keep on ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... just as lief say 'Miss,' but she's a mill girl, same as my own sister. I didn't go to ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... said; "I'll go and ask lief to take you round to the magistrate's. You'll never find your way by yourself. The next up isn't ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... frith one fine afternoon, and were lost to sight. They had a prosperous voyage throughout, and no trouble in picking up the Island of Sweet Dew, the river and the lake. There, in a glade of the forest and in full view of the lake, they saw the booths still standing, which Lief and his men had set up. They were intact, the bolts seemingly not drawn, and not much the matter with the goods within, but what fresh air and sunlight could amend it. They spent the better part of six weeks in and about those shores, but then, leaving a garrison ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... is the best for twinges o' rheumatiz," he muttered, as he turned up his collar and drew his old hat lower to keep the splashing drops from his face. "I don't jest rightly s'pose I should go; but I'm free to admit I'd as lief be dead as not to answer when I get a call, an' the fact is, I'm ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... him on his word of honor never to breathe a word about the object of the cruise to anybody. I'd as lief have his word as any one's ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... to think," he said. "I want to get out of this. Seems to me I never felt it so before. I'd as lief live in this barn as stay ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... Angus of the session's action, and told him the names of the committee. When I mentioned that of Mr. Blake, his eyes flashed fire, and in bitter tones he said, "I will meet no committee of which that man is one. I hate him, sir. I would as lief confer with the devil ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... from out the town they had got clear, The Sumner said, "Here dwelleth an old witch, That had as lief be tumbled in a ditch And break her neck, as part with an old penny. Nathless her twelve pence is as good as any, And I will have it, though she lose her wits; Or else I'll cite her with a score of writs: And yet, God wot, I know of her no vice. So learn of me, Sir Fiend: ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... all, do we, sister?" said Beth, stretching up on tiptoe to get her "bawheady" from the bureau. "We'd just as lief give it away as not, 'cause we've always ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... C, die Katze lief im Schnee, Und wie sie wieder 'raus kam, Da hatt' sie weisse Stieflein an: O jemine, O jemine, O ...
— The Baby's Bouquet - A Fresh Bunch of Rhymes and Tunes • Walter Crane
... pow'r and such a world my own, I would not take it from a woman's hand. Fame is my mistress, madam, and my sword The only friend I ever wooed her with. I hate all honours smelling of the distaff, And, by this light, would as lief wear a spindle Hung round my neck, as thank a lady's hand For any favour ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... the individual. The unit of civilization is the family. Prior to December 20, 1620, New-England life had never seen a civilized family or felt its influences. It is true that the Icelandic Chronicles tell us that Lief, the son of Eric the Red, 1001, sailed with a crew of thirty-five men, in a Norwegian vessel, and driven southward in a storm, from Greenland along the coasts of Labrador, wintered in Vineland on the shores of Mount Hope Bay. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... weeping and chattering, poor old lady, like yonder fagot on the and-irons. Long live mirth! I am a real Bicetre. Waitress, my dear, more wine. I have still the wherewithal to pay. I want no more Surene wine. It distresses my throat. I'd as lief, corboeuf! gargle my throat with ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... with cheerful resignation. She would as lief report that reply of his as another. Even more than a man whom she could entangle in his speech she liked a man who could slip through the toils with unfailing ease. Her talk with such a man was the last consolation which remained to her from a ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... with him for company. As a self-respecting coon dog he scorned to hunt any animal that couldn't fight with an even chance for his life. As for a deer—he'd as lief ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... blue again After last night's rain, And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. Only, my Love's away! I'd as lief that the blue ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... all. You couldn't outrun a steam-roller, but if you won't duck out, I've got to do my best. I'd as lief die of a gunshot-wound as starve ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... that I couldn't get back to my uncle's place to-night, and then he'd worry about me. Otherwise I would just as lief go to your place as not. Now that I've told you everything I'd like to see the whole matter cleaned up, ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... vassal of the Kerrs I must needs follow their banner, I need not tell you, since you have lived so long at Glen Cairn, that the Kerrs are feared rather than loved, and that there is many a man among us who would lief that our lord fought not by the side of the English. However, we must needs dance as he plays; and now I will put on my bonnet and do your errand. Sir John can hardly blame me greatly for doing ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... lief tell you what, Norton; only it is something you don't care about, and it would ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... this job, boys," Webb told his men. "I'd just as lief lie up here for a few days while Uncle Sam is roundin' up his pets camped out there. Old man Roubideau says we're welcome to stick around. The feed's good. Our cattle are some gaunted with the drive. It won't hurt a mite to let 'em stay right ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... difference," he said, as he rolled a cigarette and lighted it; "we have done all that we could. As for me, I would as lief be drowned here as outside. But I don't think that there will be much choice; we shall have no warning when she goes; she will ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... opinion he'd just as lief be shot as not," said Relander. "The only trouble is that these measly niggers can't hit anything they shoot at. If the darned fools would only try to miss him, they'd get him sure. The ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... round-bellied burgomaster, like a full-fed mastiff, dozes quietly at the house-door, always at home, and always at hand to watch over its safety; but as to electing a lean, meddling candidate to the office, as has now and then been done, I would as lief put a greyhound to watch the house, or a ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving |
