"Merit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... matter, it contains. As a record of the events and opinions of the past year, and as literally a picture of the time, it has a permanent value, while its wealth of excellent stories and essays makes it an endless source of entertainment. The original editorial articles are of a very high order of merit, and relate to subjects which attract the attention of all intelligent and patriotic minds. Soundness of thought, liberality of sentiment, and thorough-going loyalty find expression in the most exquisite ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... eminently suitable for effectually leading the praises of the people, but not perhaps more so, its noise notwithstanding, than the former style; indeed, I am somewhat doubtful if the new equals the old. The old certainly had the merit of engaging most, if not all, the musicians of the village in ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... fact is clear that he failed to obtain his degrees, and that he was denied admission into the public service. Hung was therefore a disappointed candidate, the more deeply disappointed, perhaps, that his sense of injured merit and the ill-judging flattery of his admirers made his rejection ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... was loitering along the snowy way to the schoolhouse bearing a brightly scoured tin pail two-thirds full of water. He had been allowed to act as Water Superintendent of the Woodruff School as a reward of merit—said merit being an essay on which he received credit in both language and geography on "Harvesting Wheat in the Tennessee Mountains." This had been of vast interest to the school in view of the fact that the Simmses were the only pupils in the school who had ever ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... his plan. It was intended to place in the hands of the Five Powers the control of international relations and the direction in large measure of the foreign policies of all nations. It was based on the power to compel obedience, on the right of the powerful to rule. Its chief merit was its honest declaration of purpose, however wrong that purpose might appear to those who denied that the possession of superior might conferred special rights upon the possessor. It seemed to provide for a rebirth of the ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... Yiddish scholar, journalist, novelist, belongs to the American nation. As far back as the year in which Stephen Crane stirred many sensibilities with his Maggie, the story of an Irish slum in Manhattan, Mr. Cahan produced in Yekl a book of similar and practically equal merit concerning a Jewish slum in the same borough. But it and his later books The Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories and The White Terror and the Red have been overwhelmed by novels by more familiar men dealing with more familiar communities. The same ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... how slight an influence will sometimes thwart an important measure in passage at the legislature. A mere whisper of some whim, a little prejudice against another, perhaps may put it all aside. How little attention is given to merit! This is true even of Hon. Senators. To one of these I spoke about his vote within ten minutes after he had given it, and he replied,—"I don't know, I am sure, how I voted, for I did not care anything ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... Sir Walter applied for the reversion. His desire was readily acceeded to; and, according to Chambers, George III. is reported to have said, when he signed the commission, that "he was happy he had it in his power to reward a man of genius, and a person of such distinguished merit." The King had signed the document, and the office fees alone remained to be paid, when Mr. Pitt died, and a new and opposite ministry succeeded. Sir Walter, however, obtained the appointment, though not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... of luck playing fairly, and he was honest enough with himself to confess that the idea no longer held either thrill or desire for him. Now that he had seen both St. Pierre and Bateese stripped for battle, he had no further appetite for fistic discussion with them. After all, there was a merit in caution, and he had several lucky stars to bless ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... ... all very well! ... but the Javanese are ill-treated. For the merit of my book is this: that refutation of its main features is impossible. And the greater the disapprobation of my book the better I shall be pleased, for the chance of being heard will be so much the greater;—and that is what ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... he should be taken away. Thus Jesus declared that fasting, like all religious rites, may be quite fitting if it is a true expression of religious feeling, but if it is a matter of form, of rule, or requirement, if it is regarded as a ground of merit, it is an absurdity and ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... to test its quality. Every boy knows that if the film of moisture is quick to vanish, there can be no question about the superlative merit of the knife. ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... Germany, and attended school, standing alone as a follower of the Saviour among one hundred and ten girls. She progressed very rapidly in her studies. Though as a rule no girl was numbered in order of merit unless she had learnt everything (and she, through lack of time, had not done so), yet at the end of the term on the prize-giving day, when the names were called out, she heard with unspeakable pleasure the words, "Frances Havergal, numero eins!" ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... what is conventionally termed criminality. For every crime that puts a man or a woman into prison, there are a hundred others committed in every-day life with absolute impunity, and yet they are just as serious, and they merit a similar if not a heavier punishment than those which the law punishes with social degradation and ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... guarded. They are to walk a sharp-spiked bridge. Gigantic chains swing across stony precipices, a lamp depends from a roof whose outlines are merged in the gray dusk of dreams. There is cruelty, horror, and a sense of the wickedly magnificent in the ensemble. What crimes were committed to merit such atrocious punishment? The boldness and clearness of it all! With perspicacity George Saintsbury wrote of Flaubert's Temptation of Saint Anthony: "It is the best example of dream literature that I know—most writers who have tried this style have erred, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... here present, Mr. Moy, are now about to see the moral merit of the Scotch law of marriage (as approved by England) practically in operation before their own eyes. They will judge for themselves of the morality (Scotch or English) which first forces a deserted woman back on the villain who has betrayed ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... the "age of faith" in Europe no philosopher of merit arose, and the only philosophy permitted was the puerile Scholastic-Aristotelic. This scholastic philosophy, hemmed in between metaphysics and theology, sought to reconcile Plato, Plotinus, and Aristotle with the needs of orthodoxy, and ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Does he see the ruddy wine Shiver in its crystal goblet, or do those grave eyes divine Something sadder yet? He pauses till their mirth has died away, Then in measured tones speaks gravely: "Boys, a story, if I may, I will tell you, though it may not merit worthily your praise, It is bitter fruitage ripened from our pranks ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... "Were your merit properly rewarded," he said, "I would appoint you at once to the command of a galley; but to do so would do you no service, for it would excite against you the jealousy of all the young nobles in the fleet. Besides, you are so young, that although the council at home cannot ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... attended the National Conventions, where all publick Acts were religiously recorded, and all Abuses of Power and Government retrenched or reformed; nor were they permitted, except in Case of extraordinary Necessity, or uncommon Merit, to deviate from their proper and primitive Spheres of Action: Since, where an harmonious Subordination of Rank and Order hath not been duly preserved, even in free Estates, Liberty itself (wisely attempered, the greatest of all social Blessings) hath often, from Abuse and Neglect, sickened into ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... given, the musicians being dressed in various unique costumes. They are seated opposite each other in the wings like the two sides of a choir. A dancing stage extends the whole length of its front, and this opens into a hall full of ex-voto pictures, some of which possess great artistic merit. Directly behind this main temple are several other temples and an eleven-storied pagoda which it is impossible ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... is now with me from Maryland, and I find him a person of great merit. Respecting the Colonies he is recommended as such by —— from whom he has received a letter but of no immediate importance; he proposes seeing me here this month. M. Dumas has written me two letters from the Hague, but so timid that he has not ventured to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... Oswald—"but perhaps it is all the better—I am to retain my situation, and so are two others: but there are many new hands coming in as rangers. I know nothing of them but that they are little fitted for their places; and rail against the king all day long, which I suppose is their chief merit in the eyes of those who appoint them. However, one thing is certain, that if those fellows cannot stalk a deer themselves, they will do all they can to prevent others; so you must be on the alert, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... justified That bounding hope of mine, though fruitage was denied, Yet this same fate which did our union ban Hath made me, fated—wed another man. Let Duty still be queen! Yea, let her break The heart she pierces, yet can never shake. The virtue, once thy pride in days gone by Doth that same worth now merit blasphemy? Bewail her bitter fruit—but praised be The rights that triumph over ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... was only one like him," said Packard in after days, "and that was Kim. And Kim's name was O'Hara. As chela to Teshoo Lama, Kim acquired merit. As devil in the Bad Lands Cowboy office, Johnny acquired a place in my estimation only to be described in the beatitudes of an inspired writer. Kim went out with his begging-bowl and he and his Lama feasted bounteously. Johnny boarded passenger ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... height of his absurdity in describing the resistance of the two pilgrims to the manifold temptations of Vanity Fair, which he so set forth as to take from Christian and Faithful the smallest possible appearance of merit in turning their backs ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry," are in a popular and familiar style, and the two last are excellently adapted for elementary study. His numerous pamphlets and contributions to the Transactions of the Royal Society have the same rare merit of conveying experimental knowledge in the most attractive form, and thus reducing abstract theory to the practice and purposes of life and society. The results of his investigations and experiments were not therefore pent up in the laboratory or lecture-room ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction—Volume 13 - Index to Vol. 13 • Various
... painful, be supplied with an ample provision of strength, patience, virtue and energy. And, if happily deceived in your fears, you find the road which leads to eternity smooth under your feet, you will at least have the merit of having been wise in your conduct, for not less moral strength is required to bear the happiness of prosperity than the misfortune of adversity. Happiness here below is something so extremely perilous to man's eternal welfare that few can taste it without injury to their souls. Hence, in order ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... who mentions the name of anyone who was believed to have written a Gospel. It is true that what he says is of very little weight, but, since no one else had said anything at all on the point, his remarks merit attention which ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... battling for his existence against men and devils, Trajan and Company included—have lain far apart. Their Correspondence perceptibly languishing, in consequence, and even rumors rising on the subject, Voltaire wrote once: "Give me a yard of ribbon, Sire [your ORDER OF MERIT, Sire], to silence those vile rumors!" Which Friedrich, on such free-and-easy terms, had silently declined. "A meddlesome, forward kind of fellow; always getting into scrapes and brabbles!" thinks Friedrich. But is really ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... recruitment, assignment, and training, including selection for service schools and academies, as well as in mess halls, quarters, recreational facilities, and post exchanges. It also wanted commissions and promotions awarded on merit alone and asked for new laws to protect servicemen from discrimination in communities adjacent to military bases.[12-14] The committee wanted the President to look beyond the integration of people working and living on military bases, and it introduced ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... individuals into an eminent or elevated position, their names become intertwined with the great epoch. In the eyes of the masses and of the vulgar observers, such names acquire a high importance on account of the commonly made confusion between circumstances and personal merit, and, moonlight-like, such names reverberate not their own, but a borrowed splendor. Thus much for the official pilots ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... will now notice Chia Yuean-ch'un, within the precincts of the Palace. When she had arranged the verses composed in the park of Broad Vista in their order of merit, she suddenly recollected that the sights in the garden were sure, ever since her visit through them, to be diligently and respectfully kept locked up by her father and mother; and that by not allowing any one to go in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... H. G. Wells upon a title page is an assurance of merit. It is a guarantee that on the pages which follow will be found an absorbing story told with master skill. In the present hook Mr. Wells surpasses even his previous efforts. He is writing of modern society ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman
... destiny, owing no gratitude except to his own might, and being compelled to yield to nothing save the enigmatical, pitiless power of eternal laws or their co-operation, so incomprehensible to the human intellect, called "chance," which took no heed of merit or unworthiness. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gentlemen, because I could not find letters large enough to please them; and some were so fond of elbow room that they would have shoved everybody out but themselves, as if one person was to do all and have the merit of all, like generals of an army." Garrick seems to have been the first actor honoured by capital letters of extra size in the playbills. "The Connoisseur," in 1754, says: "The writer of the playbills deals out his capitals ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... history of science," says M. Vivien de Saint Martin, "that we see two men of such merit succeed each other in the same career or rather continue it; for in reality Burckhardt followed up the traces Seetzen had opened out, and, seconded for a considerable time by favourable circumstances ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... of Ralegh's birth the family had lost its pristine splendour. But there has been a tendency to exaggeration of the extent of the decadence, by way of foil to the merit which retrieved the ruin. John Hooker, a contemporary Devonshire antiquary, uncle to the author of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, described the family as 'consopited,' and as having 'become buried in ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... from Nature, and American Nature. The volume, we think, marks the highest point that native Art has reached in this direction, and may challenge comparison with that of any other country. Many of the drawings are of great and decided merit, graceful and truthful at the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... plates; "Roast Vealer for Mac," and as Mac smiled and acknowledged the honour, Rosy was dismissed. "Boilee Ham" was allotted to the Dandy; and as Bertie's Nellie scampered away, Cheon announced other triumphs in turn and in order of merit, each of the company receiving a dish also in order of merit: Tam-o'-Shanter contenting himself with the gravy boat, while, from the beginning, the Quiet Stockman had been honoured ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... cognomen of Euroclydon of the Red Head in that breezy collegiate republic whose only order is the Prussian "For Merit." He was always in a hurry, and his red head, with its fiery, untamed shock of bristle, usually shot into the class-room a yard or so before his broad shoulders. At least, this was the general impression produced. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... merit, he was convinced of that. It would take considerable capital to enlarge the ditch and to put it in perfect condition, but the returns would warrant the outlay in time. The numerous failures had complicated the affairs of the company somewhat, but patience and the ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... accomodation of travellers. He embraces this opportunity of returning his grateful thanks to those gentlemen who have heretofore favored him with their custom and hopes by a faithful discharge of his duty to merit the countenance ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... "Dost thou commonly merit the gifts given thee? When man meriteth that he receiveth—when he doth somewhat, to obtain it—it is a wage, not a gift. The very life and soul of a gift is that it is not merited, but given of free favour, of friendship ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... St. Thomas thus meets this difficulty: "The Pope does not execute any one," he says, "or order him to be put to death; heretics are executed by the law which the Pope tolerates; they practically cause their own death by committing crimes which merit death."[1] The heretic who received this answer to his objections must surely have found it very far-fetched. He could easily have replied that the Pope "not only allowed heretics to be put to death, but ordered ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... knows, God knows, I am his wife,' she said helplessly, 'and he loves me.' 'And God knows, God knows,' said the Baron, 'it is all a question of whether one shall feed and two go hungry, or two gather and one have the stubble! Shall not he stand in the stubble? What has he done to merit you? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to thank you, sir," he announced. "If you hadn't hurried me away, the wretched old creature would have been choked. A regular stand-up fight, by Jupiter, between death and the doctor!—and the doctor has won! Give me the reward of merit. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... variable and contingent. This fact is the principle of all morality. That every act contrary to right and justice, deserves to be repressed by force, and punished when committed, equally in the absence of any law or contract: that man naturally recognizes the distinction between the merit and demerit of actions, as he does that between justice and injustice, honesty and dishonesty; and feels, without being taught, and in the absence of law or contract, that it is wrong for vice to be rewarded or go unpunished, and for virtue to be punished or left unrewarded: ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the modern Pre-Raphaelites. Pretty village scenes of common life,—pleasant domestic passages, with a touch of easy humor in them,—little pathoses and fancynesses, are abundant enough; and Wilkie, to be sure, has done more than this, though not a great deal more. His merit lies, not in a high aim, but in accomplishing his aim so perfectly. It is unaccountable that the English painters' achievements should be so much inferior to those of the English poets, who have really elevated the human mind; but, to be sure, painting has only become an English art subsequently ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Powers," and other American recruits in the army of villany, have only changed sides in their crimes. All these wretches merit the deaths awaiting them. The last purely international element of discord vanishes ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... John in that maddening reel last night, I did not mean you to draw the inference you did. That you did draw it argues a touch of vanity in a man who is not alone in the field where he imagines himself victor. John, who is humbler, sees some merit in—well, in Frederick Snow, let us say. So do I, but merit does not always win, any more than presumption. When we meet, let it be as friends, but as friends only. A girl cannot be driven into love. To ride on your big mare, Judith, ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... be no misunderstanding, I've turned to piracy for a change. Great sport! I've chartered the yacht for a short cruise." His banter turned into cold, precise tones. Cunningham went on: "No nonsense, captain! I put this crew on board away back in New York. Those beads, though having a merit of their own, were the lure to bring your father to these parts. Your presence and Miss Norman's are accidents for which I am genuinely sorry. But frankly, I dare not turn you loose. That's the milk in the cocoanut. I grant you the ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... manometer does not give so accurate indications, perhaps, but it possesses, as an offset, the merit of being very portable and easily put in place; and, besides, it inscribes the hour at which the pressure ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... had given its motive a much wider application. If the little Doctor were to submit to accept help, it must be commensurate with the dignity of Redcross and the county, and with his own professional status and merit. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... part, were he not thus to acknowledge the long-extended success which has attended his labours, from their commencement to the present moment. At the same time, lest vanity should be thought to have mastered his better judgment, he assures his patrons that he does not claim the undivided merit of his good fortune; since, beyond his own taste of adaptation and selection, he "misses nothing he can fairly lay his hands on;" so that, the multiplicity of his resources being considered, his success is, perhaps, more complimentary to the discernment ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various
... if a man, in worshipping ... sacrifices a sheep, and so does well, wherefore not his child, ... and so do better? Surely ... there is no merit in killing ...
— The Essence of Buddhism • Various
... his brothers, "that you are young and have neither judgment nor experience, or you would never speak as you have done of these hated white men. You extol them as virtuous men, who injure no one. You say that they are valiant; are children of the Sun, and merit all our reverence and service. The vile chains which they have hung upon you, and the mean and dastardly spirit which you have acquired during the short period you have been their slaves, have caused you to speak like women, lauding what you should ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... bachelor, I ranged myself with the two abandoned husbands and we had quite a reckless time of it, talking with uninterrupted devilishness about the growth of American dentistry in European capitals, the way one has his nails manicured in Germany, the upset price of hot-house strawberries, the relative merit of French and English bulls, the continued progress of the weather and sundry other topics of similar piquancy. Elsie invited all of us to a welsh rarebit party she was giving at eleven-thirty, and then they got to work at the bridge table, poor George Hazzard cutting in ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... the typewriter, and has most gallantly completed upon that the draft of a tale, which seems to me not without merit and promise, it is so silly, so gay, so absurd, in spots (to my partial eyes) so genuinely humorous. It is true, he would not have written it but for the New Arabian Nights; but it is strange to find a young ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... instructions to them it should be made clear that they are not to decide which side of a proposition they themselves approve. They are to decide which group of speakers does the best work. They should try to be merely the impersonal registers of comparative merit. They should sink their own feelings as every teacher must when he hears a good speech from one of his own students supporting something to which the instructor is opposed. Good judges of debates realize this and frequently award decisions to speakers who support opposite positions to their personal ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... really should not have the face to tell our readers that water, passing through soils containing elements prejudicial to vegetation, would carry them off, but would leave those which are beneficial behind. We cannot make our water so discriminating; the general merit of water of deep drainage is, that it contains very little. Its perfection would be that it should contain nothing. We understand that experiments are in progress which have ascertained that water, charged with matters which are known to ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no substitute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves. ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... forgot her books, yet seldom took the trouble to go for them, unless sent. But when she came into the class-room again, with several others who had also seized this opportunity of walking out, she seemed hardly to merit her friend's suspicions. She paused a moment by the teacher's desk, and then took ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in the Roman Catholic theology to works or good deeds performed by saints over and above what is required for their own salvation, and the merit of which is held to be transferable to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Obolensky entitled "Chekhov and Korolenko." The fellow goes into raptures over me and proves that I am more of an artist than Korolenko. He is probably talking rot, but, anyway, I am beginning to be conscious of one merit of mine: I am the only writer who, without ever publishing anything in the thick monthlies, has merely on the strength of writing newspaper rubbish won the attention of the lop-eared critics—there has been no instance of this ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... You must never, therefore, aim at freedom. It is not required of your drawing that it should be free, but that it should be right; in time you will be able to do right easily, and then your work will be free in the best sense; but there is no merit in doing wrong easily. ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... mistake, my dear. Names never distinguished people. A man's merit and money are the things that do it. This is a free country. A woman may have as many quarrels as she pleases, and have her own way in things generally. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... the unknown, in the same spirit, "pass me your album, and you shall know me as a very sincere admirer of your merit." ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... her eyes dwelt upon him and her hand rested at ease within his clasp, and she liked to hear him speak of the home they were to make in the wilderness. It was to be thus, and thus, and thus! With impassioned eloquence the Gael adorned the shrine and advanced the merit of the divinity, and the divinity listened with a smile, a blush, a tear, and now and then ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... restoration, after all the diligence of his long service, and with consciousness not only of the merit of fidelity, but of the dignity of great abilities, he naturally expected ample preferments; and, that he might not be forgotten by his own fault, wrote a song of triumph. But this was a time of such general hope, that great numbers were ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... suppose. It certainly can't have been the intellectual merit of the sermon. I heard it was quite deplorable. But last Sunday's, I was told, was worse still. No continuity at all, and the church not full. People say the curate, Mr. Chichester, who often preaches in the evening, is making a ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... finish of the complete portrait which he set himself to draw; and it is by small details of character—personal traits, features, habits, and characteristics—that we are enabled to see before us the men as they really lived. Plutarch's great merit consists in his attention to these little things, without giving them undue preponderance, or neglecting those which are of greater moment. Sometimes he hits off an individual trait by an anecdote, which throws more light upon the character described ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... misreported by Dyce. The first anonymous edition of the Missionary, 1813, had no dedication; and the second was inscribed to the Marquess of Lansdowne because he had been prominent among those who recognised the merit of ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... a "good old good-for-nothing darky." The whole district allowed that he had no other merit beyond that of sawing the fiddle; and this merit, which is not one in our own eyes, was highly valued, however, by all the colored people, and even by the whites who lived for a distance of forty miles round. One ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... have founded no other beds than those in their own houses. It is as well to relate this fact, in order to cleanse the reputation of this honest girl, who herself once washed dirty things, and who afterwards became famous for her clever tricks and her wit. She gave a proof of her merit in marrying Taschereau, who she cuckolded right merrily, as has been related in the story of The Reproach. This proves to us most satisfactorily that with strength and patience ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... res non est, non videtur punienda, unless indeed, because an act is not consummated, it does not seem to merit punishment. ...
— New Latin Grammar • Charles E. Bennett
... great merit of having discovered the poesy of the grave. From the outset it abhorred the Pagan custom of burning the dead, and faithful to its Jewish origin, and mindful perhaps of Christ's burial, it renewed the old Roman custom of interring the departed. This was the origin of the catacombs. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... continual wars and wandering, however, the twelve clans had dwindled to four. Only the Mequachake, Chillicothe, Piqua, and Kiscopoke remained. In the first of these, which conducted all tribal rites, the chiefship was hereditary; in the other three it was the reward of merit. ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... to join the army on the frontiers. Here his courage soon distinguished him; but his honest nature still stood in the way of his promotion. Several years elapsed, and his rise had been infinitely slower than that of men not less inferior to him in birth than merit. Some months since, he had repaired to Madrid to enforce his claims upon the government; but instead of advancing his suit, he had contrived to effect a serious breach with the cardinal, and been abruptly ordered back to the camp. Once more he appeared at Madrid; but this ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... so much more ought we to admire His Skill, Who has been able to work up his Pieces to such Sublimity from such low Originals. Had he had the Advantages of many of his Successors, ought not we to believe, that he would have made the greatest Use of them? I shall not insist upon the Merit of those who first break through the thick Mist of Barbarism in Poetry, which was so strong about the Time our Poet writ, because this must be easily sensible to every Reader who has the least Tincture of Letters; but thus much we must observe, that before his Time there were very few (if any) ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... send the medicine, already prepared, for from three to five dollars. Of course, the whole scheme from beginning to end being a swindle, when the "medicine" is obtained and taken it proves entirely useless. Skill and genuine merit do not go begging. Men who spend hundreds of dollars for the publication of advertisements offering to give away valuable information can always be safely set down ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... spreading and naturalizing itself, are, by accident, greater than theirs. That same analogy he finds repeated in the great drama of colonization. It is not, says he pensively to himself, the success which measures the merit. It is not that nature, or that providence, has any final cause at work in disseminating these British children over every zone and climate of the earth. Oh, no! far from it! But it is the unfair advantages of these islanders, which carry them thus potently a-head. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... have discovered several interesting facts about the origin of the woman to whom may be ascribed the merit of "creating" the writer who was destined to exercise so great an influence on his own and succeeding generations.[*] Curiously enough, Louise Antoinette Laure Hinner, destined at the age of fifteen years and ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... classification will show the value of the more important trees for different kinds of planting. The species are arranged in the order of their merit for the particular object under consideration and the comments accompanying each tree are intended to bring out its special qualifications ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... you see, had the makings of a philosopher. And now the Eleven were grunting "Willow the King." And when the last echo of the chorus died away in the great room, Uncle John whispered to his nephew that he had heard Harrow songs in every corner of the earth, and that convincing proof of merit shone out of the fact that their charm waxed rather than waned with the years; they improved, like wine, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... limited extent in the manufacture of golf-balls, but mainly as the insulating cover of copper wires used in ocean telegraph cables. For this purpose it has no known substitute, and its essential merit is the fact that it is not altered by salt water. Nearly all the product is shipped from ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... where pure thought can dwell as in its natural home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape from the dreary exile of the actual world." This study is one of "those elements in human life which merit a place in heaven." "The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... Shakespeare occasionally, a subject on which you must know that he has lost his conscience, if he ever had any. For what did Dr. Allen ... say when he felt Spedding's head? Why, that all his bumps were so tempered that there was no merit in his sobriety—then what would have been the use of a Conscience to ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... of telling you and of thanking you for having been my guide up to the present time. I must not even keep you ignorant of the fact that their Imperial Majesties give you the full justice due you and have for you all the sentiments you can desire. What has been done must merit, it seems to me, the approbation of the impartial public and of posterity. But what remains to be done is too great and too worthy of you for you to give up the task of contributing and to leave imperfect a work which cannot fail to make you forever ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... you look at matters in so unfriendly a light?" said Cranmer, gently. "Wherefore will you consider it a mark of contempt, if you are not chosen to an office to which, indeed, neither merit nor worthiness can call us, but only the personal confidence of ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... I rose and walked through the house again. Again the rooms showed nothing to my flashlight except dull furniture, walls peeling here and there from long neglect, pictures of no merit and dreary subject. I had expected nothing, and ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... exaggerated and immediately engaged in an enthusiastic spider hunt. When these Huadquina spiders were studied at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zooelogy, Dr. Chamberlain found among them the representatives of four new genera and nineteen species hitherto unknown to science. As a reward of merit, he gave Professor ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... a Jack-of-all-trades. The judge spoke as from a topless tower of achievement, relating anecdotes of his own persistence under difficulties at the beginning of a career which he allowed his hearer to infer had been of shining merit, hampered, it is true, by the most trying ill health. Even Mrs. Penniman said that they were expecting great things of him, now that ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... from the Eatanswill Gazette the following admirable tribute to Mr. Pickwick's merit, from the vigorous pen, as we understand, of its Editor, Mr. Pott:—"Not only in Dulwich, but in Eatanswill, is there mourning, to-day. We have lost Pickwick—Pickwick the true and the Blue. For Blue he was, to the very core and marrow ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... was a teetotaller. My father used to say to me: Rob, he says, dont you ever have a weakness. If you find one getting a hold on you, make a merit of it, he says. Your Uncle Phil doesnt like spirits; and he makes a merit of it, and is chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee. I do like spirits; and I make a merit of it, and I'm the King Cockatoo of the Convivial Cockatoos. Never put yourself in the wrong, he says. ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... Where did he come from, and what has he done that should merit the confidence thus placed ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... face death in battle. No great courage or merit in that. The soldier is swept along with the mass. Often he cannot shirk if he would. The chances usually are that he will come out alive. He may be inspired ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... vol. ii. pp. 427-468,) have given detailed accounts of his subsequent life and writings. He was imprisoned, and narrowly escaped the persecuting violence of his Superior, Patrick Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrews, in the year 1529. Alesse has the merit of being among the first who contended for the translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular tongue. He died at Leipzig on the 17th of ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... rid us of this tyranny? Failure alone can kill what lives only upon popular success, and it is the old-fashioned, self-respecting journals which are facing ruin. Prosperity is with the large circulations, and a large circulation is no test of merit. Success is made neither by honesty nor wisdom. The people will buy what flatters its vanity or appeals to its folly. And the Yellow Press will flourish, with its headlines and its vulgarity, until the mixed ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... ulterior scope of his speculation, according to which the universal movement of all natural things is but one particular stage, or measure, of that ceaseless activity wherein the divine reason consists. The one true being—that constant subject of all early thought—it was his merit to have conceived, not as sterile and stagnant inaction, but as a perpetual energy, from the restless stream of which, [130] at certain points, some elements detach themselves, and harden into non-entity and death, corresponding, as outward objects, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... powerful an influence on mankind in general; and convinced that I have not wrote a line that conveys a wrong idea to the head or a corrupt wish to the heart, I shall rest satisfied in the purity of my own intentions, and if I merit not applause, I feel that I dread ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... still thought necessary as might clear off past liabilities, and enable one of the most genuine of writers better to enjoy the easier future that had at last been opened to him. Reserving therefore anything realized beyond a certain sum for a dramatic author of merit, Mr. John Poole, to whom help had become also important, it was proposed to give, on Leigh Hunt's behalf, two representations of Ben Jonson's comedy, one at Manchester and the other at Liverpool, to be ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... you thought well.... I shall be a criminal, I shall merit death; but can I do otherwise? I will not denounce this traitor, because that also would be treason; and he is my friend, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is simple: chance alone presided over my choice; my merit was not considered. It was chance that put me in his way. It was by chance that I was participant in one of his strangest and most mysterious adventures; and by chance that I was an actor in a drama of which he was the marvelous stage director; an obscure and intricate ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... as the first examples published of MacDowell's work in this form of composition. They are well written and obviously sincere, which is in itself a merit rare in song writing, but they have little of the individual charm and beauty of expression found in the composer's later song groups. My Love and I is the most popular of the set, having a certain ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... without any adjective, in such ladylike ease as became their birth and habits, and at the same time providing for a family of his own—he remained, you see, at the age of eight-and-forty, a bachelor, not making any merit of that renunciation, but saying laughingly, if any one alluded to it, that he made it an excuse for many indulgences which a wife would never have allowed him. And perhaps he was the only person ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... which, above the rank of brigadier, works far from the actual line of battle, unless it "slips" in the wrong direction. They were stern disciplinarians, and tested the quality of troops by their smartness in saluting and on parade, which did not account for the fighting merit of the Australians. Most of them were conservative by political tradition and hereditary instinct, and conservative also in military ideas and methods. They distrusted the "brilliant" fellow, and were ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... burden on a chair, when Alick and Jos bundled the old lady in after her, with a very scant ceremony; indeed there was no time for any; and then they closed the door and walked a little way off, and tried to look as unconcerned as if they had done nothing to merit ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... liturgical history, are of a value altogether out of proportion to the beauty of their illuminations. Side by side with this succession are the Evangelistina, which, like the example mentioned above, are of the highest merit, beauty, and value; followed by sermons and homilies, and the Breviary, which itself shows signs of growth as the years go on. The real Missal, with which all illuminated books used to be confounded, is of rare occurrence, but I ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... list in the artillery, and it was only just that you should be appointed. But, all the same, you dog, you've influential people at your back. That old uncle the director. I hope one of these days both services will give their promotions and appointments by merit alone." ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... upon these men in England, whether for or against, were all personal. The Dost was the favourite—which was generous—as he had no solitary merit to plead except that he had lost the election; or, as the watchmaker's daughter so pointedly said on behalf of Nigel Lord Glenvarloch, "Madam, he is unfortunate." Searching, however, in all corners for the undiscovered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... he began, "I cannot but flatter myself that you are not wholly ignorant of the high esteem I have long had for your deep merit." ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... of the inferior sex. Even Darwin, so scientific that he tried to see all things fairly, entertained this unjust view. When women have had the same inspiration and opportunity as men their work has been equal in merit." ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... one of them departed to govern his kingdom, the White Cat making herself ever remembered as much by her kindness and generosity as by her rare merit ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... so many of her sex who lead solitary lives, had constructed for herself a curious philosophy out of the hotch-potch of maxims, theories, prejudices and principles which she called her opinions, and it had at any rate the merit of being a ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... noble lineaments, and he was, if man can judge, a devoted and exalted Christian. There was no one, in those stormy times, more illustrious as a warrior, statesman, theologian, and orator. "We can not," says a French writer, "indicate a species of merit in which he did not excel, except that he did not advance his own fortune." When but twelve years of age, a priest exhorted him to beware of the ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... who has rendered such distinguished services to his country as to merit the gratitude and reverence of every loyal American; a man who has spent the best years of his life in fighting his country's battles and in studying and obeying her laws, was insulted and degraded by men who, so far as true moral worth ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... beautiful to observe how by degrees he learned to shorten the backs and prolong the legs of these noble animals, until they came to look less like crocodiles, and more like nags. Detraction, which always pursues merit with strides proportioned to its advancement, has indeed alleged that Dick once upon a time painted a horse with five legs, instead of four. I might have rested his defence upon the license allowed to that branch of his profession, which, as it permits all sorts of singular and irregular combinations, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott |
