"Nigh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... test the nerve of any man. To one of the Curator's sympathetic temperament it was well-nigh unendurable. Turning to those nearest, he begged for an explanation of ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... famine. By the failure of the potato crop, hundreds of thousands died of starvation or of fever. Multitudes had to leave their homes to get government work; and hunger and despair brought a new temptation to drink. Father Mathew's heart was well-nigh broken with seeing the misery of his countrymen. The food was taken from his own table to feed the hungry. Every room in his house would sometimes be filled with poor people clamoring for bread; and, largely as a result of this terrible strain, ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... fool. He was making the creek when I come off. His gal was with him and John Ward. Come pretty nigh potting that Ward feller. He's a white man, but I can't git it out of my noodle that he ain't ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... time there was an Emperor who had three sons and three daughters. As he was very old, his last hour drew nigh. He therefore called his children to his bedside and laid earnest command upon his sons to give their sisters, without hesitation, to the first suitors who asked for them in marriage. "Marry them off," he said to the sons, "or my curse will be ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... seat was fixed to make their obeisance, and so fell back into their order again. The younger Markham did several gallant feats on a horse before the gate, leaping down and kissing his sword, then mounting swiftly on the saddle, and passing a lance with much skill. The day well nigh spent, the queen went and tasted a small beverage that was set out in divers rooms where she might pass, and then in much order was attended to her palace; the cornets and trumpets sounding through ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot! Though thou the waters warp, Thy tooth is not so sharp ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... got into nest ob snakes," he declared, "reckon I killed fifty of 'em, but more and more kept coming so I had to run. Golly, I 'spect thar was mighty nigh a hundred chased me most to camp. Dat's why I yells ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Beauty—Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips. Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... poor Indian failed to appear with the others at the church for the divine services, having gone to the river to bathe; there, by divine permission, a cayman seized him, and well nigh caused his death. He was brought to the church covered with gashes, and in such agony that he could neither understand, nor hear, nor utter a word. On account of his precarious condition, and as he was one of the catechumens, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... I go? He is a-nigh. His boat I hear at the landing;" and she stood up, intent, listening, with her fair head lifted, and her wet eyes fixed ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... as before. She even found strength to appropriate the blessings of the occasion, and took comfort, as did her dying daughter, in the intimate friendship, which grew closer as the time of parting drew nigh. ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the journey, the postillions stopped at the convent, by the Count's order, to take up Blanche, whose heart beat with delight, at the prospect of novelty and freedom now before her. As the time of her departure drew nigh, her impatience had increased, and the last night, during which she counted every note of every hour, had appeared the most tedious of any she had ever known. The morning light, at length, dawned; the matin-bell ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... mamma, the substance, or at any rate, the meaning of our conversation. If Mademoiselle des Touches made me talk to her freely, she also gave me much to think of; and all the more because, in the delight of this trip, and the charm of these relations with my Calyste, I had well-nigh forgotten the serious situation of which I spoke to you in my first letter, and about which ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... neither God nor man—in a skirmish with a neighbouring clan, captured a widow's two sons, and in a most heartless manner caused them to be hanged on a gibbet erected almost before her very door. It was in vain that, with well nigh heartbroken tears, she denounced his iniquitous act, for his comrades and himself only laughed and scoffed, and even threatened to burn her cottage to the ground. But as the crimson and setting rays of a summer sun fell on the lifeless bodies ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... shackles of every slave, and consumed, in the fire of liberty, every slave-pen within the shadow of the capitol. Our national industries, by an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, and the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the treasury itself was well-nigh empty. The money of the people was the wretched notes of two thousand uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking corporations, which were filling the country with a circulation that poisoned rather than sustained the life of business. The Republican party changed all this. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... "The journey would be well-nigh impossible, I expect," Raed remarked. "On getting in from the coast, we should probably meet with no sea-fowl, no seals: in fact, I hardly know what we should be able to get for game. I have heard that caribou-deer are common in Labrador; but they are, as we know from experience ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Gregory, well-nigh overwhelmed with the realization of what he meant to do, grasped the door for support. Presently he spoke, brokenly, "Lucy, how true that is—we do, indeed, need ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... to Blair that his wife and he had had more bitterness over that dispute than ever they had tasted since they knew what bitterness meant. Well might Rutherford say, on another such occasion, 'It is hard when saints rejoice in the sufferings of saints, and when the redeemed hurt, and go nigh to hate the redeemed.' Watch and pray, my brethren, lest in controversy—ephemeral and immaterial controversy—you also go near to hate and hurt one another, as ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... at hand, and the moment draws nigh; The dog-star of treason grows dim in the sky; Shine forth from the battle-cloud, light of the morn, Call back the bright hour when the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... exactly like those on freight cars, and these wheels have wooden felloes and spokes. With poor springs the result is that though the road-bed is perfect the cars are as rough as our freight cars. When the speed is over twenty-five miles an hour or the road is crooked, the motion of the cars is well nigh intolerable. Ordinarily the motion is so great that reading is difficult and writing out of the question. At night the jar of the car is so severe that one must be very tired or very phlegmatic to get any refreshing sleep. When one ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... if not altogether as brisk as bees, did the four Pickwickian shades assemble on a winter morning in the year of grace, 1896. Christmas was nigh at hand, in all its fin-de-siecle inwardness; it was the season of pictorial too-previousness and artistic anticipation, of plethoric periodicals, all shocker-sensationalism sandwiched with startling advertisements; of cynical new-humour and ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... victuals as got safe thither arrived smoking hot, as they tell the story."[53] A good part, however, disappeared on the road, since, in Corsair's phrase, "the Christian slaves wore hooks on their fingers," and the guests went nigh to be starved. 'Ali's plan for feeding his slaves was characteristic. He gave them no loaves as others did, but told them they were indeed a sorry set of scoundrels, unworthy of the name of slaves, if, during the two or three hours of liberty they enjoyed before sunset, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... were feasting in the royal banquet-hall, De Breteuil told a dream he had, that evil would befall If the King should go to-morrow to the hunting of the deer, And while he spoke, the fiery face grew well-nigh pale to hear. ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... in thy nursery short time since, And latterly hast passed the vacant hour Where the familiar voice of history Is hardly known, however nigh, attuned In softer accents to the sickened ear; But thou hast heard, for nurses tell these tales, Whether I drew my sword for Witiza Abandoned by the people he betrayed, Though brother to the woman who of all Was ever dearest to this broken ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... Cunnin'ham; that's exactly my notion," eagerly agreed the boatswain. "I believe that by runnin' away off in about this here direction," pointing away toward the south—east, "we ought to lift her pretty nigh to her rail by the time that she draws up abreast of us; and if we can do that we stands a very good chance of bein' seen. I haven't no great faith in our prospec's of fetchin' Rio; and if we gets ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... and adaptation of parts to changed conditions? The great principle of economy is continually at work shaping organisms, as sculptors shape statues, by removing the superfluous parts; and a mere glance at the forms of animals in general will show that it is well-nigh as dominant and universal a principle as is that of the positive development of useful parts. Other causes, moreover besides actual economy, would favour shorter and more convenient wings on oceanic islands. ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... so serious! We who govern the Colony have to take all possibilities, however unpleasant, into consideration. I myself do not think the danger imminent, and many in the Council and among the Burgesses, and well-nigh all outside will not allow that there is danger at all. We passed more stringent servant laws last year, and we depend upon them, and upon the great body of indented servants, who are, for the most part, honest and amenable and know upon which side their bread is buttered, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... also some extracts from my Latin manuscript, "On the congeniality of languages[V]," to publish them with that article in the "Carinthia"[W]. I finished writing that article on the 6th February, 1835. When I was on the 7th February well nigh ready to go to my students in the college, I was moved by the spirit to write instantly a prophetical conclusion to that article. When I finished that conclusion, I hurried to be in the college. After that there was much talking among the Professors and others about the morning star which ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... Cure, and consultation with an expensive veterinary surgeon, to get the whilom race horse into a condition to slowly walk to market. I understood now the force of the one truthful clause—"She will go better at the end of the drive than at the beginning," for it was well-nigh impossible to get her stiff legs started without a fire kindled under them and a measure of oats held enticingly before her. It was enraging, but nothing to after experiences. All the disappointed livery men, their complaisance and cordiality, wholly a thing of the past, ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... prosaic seemed everyone about her. The violently high spirits of the other girls, their scramblings for flowers and shriekings at snakes, their too obvious blushes and iron-clad flirtations, seemed not to come a-nigh her. "Her soul was like a star and dwelt apart." The young man assured himself that he was not falling in love with her again; he was merely laying at her feet an involuntary tribute of admiration, the sort of admiration which he might feel ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... newspaper and magazine humor is well-nigh universal,—always saving, it is true, certain topics or states of mind which the American public cannot regard as topics for laughter. With these few exceptions nothing is too high or too low for ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... befo' enduin' my livin' days," she asserted. "You knows me, who I am an' whum I cum f'um, nigh's well's I knows who you ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... Righteousness which is of Faith speaketh on this wise,—'Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven?' (that is, to bring CHRIST down from above:) or, 'Who shall descend into the deep?' (that is, to bring up CHRIST again from the dead.) But what saith it? 'The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thine heart:' that is, the word of Faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the LORD JESUS, and shalt believe in thine heart that GOD hath raised Him from the dead, thou ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... ye who doe the crusades' musters tell, In wise that maketh myndes incredulous, And paynte how like Dan Neptune's sweeping swell The North bore down on the perfidious! Ne nigh so potent thatte as was with us; Where men, like locusts, darkened all the land, As marched they toward the place that's treacherous, And shippes, that eke did follow the command, Like forests, motion-got, doe ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... But I am sure there would be nigh six of them!" answered the woman, in a tone of deep annoyance—nor was it much wonder; they were precious to the cold, feeble age that had gone so far to ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... his crown by his tyranny, and who had failed to regain it by his courage. In the next place, for his devotion to that cause, he was a banished and an outlawed man, with his life at the mercy of any one who chose to take it. In the next he was well nigh penniless, with the life of another, dear, most dear to his heart, depending entirely ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... no air to breathe; as if we was just taking red-hot dust into our lungs. Poor little Jock seemed very sick; he lay and moaned and moaned, like a baby, and kept looking from the doctor to me, as if he was asking us to help him. I was pretty nigh beat out, too, and even the doctor seemed fagged; but we could stand it better than the poor little beast could. I sat and fanned him, but that didn't help him much, the air was so hot. Then the doctor sent me for some cracked ice, and we put it on his head and neck, and that ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... in a loud clear voice, "halt, I beseech you, before harm comes to you! I know that you have sore grievances, I know that you and your wives and families are well nigh famishing, but how do you think that you will better your condition by assaulting castles and burning down chateaux? You are but preparing labour for yourselves and heaping up fresh imposts on your own heads, for ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... the doctor entered my room with the marks of great exhilaration contending with pitiful bodily weakness. 'Asenath,' said he, 'I have now obtained the last ingredient. In one week from now the perilous moment of the last projection will draw nigh. You have once before assisted, although unconsciously, at the failure of a similar experiment. It was the elixir which so terribly exploded one night when you were passing my house; and it is idle to deny that the conduct of so delicate a process, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... published. There is a pictograph of this monster near Walpi,[148] and pictures of him, as he exists in modern conceptions, have been drawn for me by the priests. These agree so closely with the pictograph and with the representation on the potsherd from Sikyatki, that I regard it well-nigh proven that they represent the same personage. The head is round and bears two feathers, while the star emblem appears in the eye. The wing and the stump of a tail are well represented, while the leg has three talons, which can only be those ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... summed up in his dreary vacillating way. He told the gentlemen of the jury that young men would be young men, especially where pretty wenches were concerned, and that all knew that there was bitterness where Whig and Tory were living nigh together. Then he went over the evidence, at first in a tone favourable to the encounter having been almost accidental, and the stroke an act of passion. But he then added, it was strange, and he did not know what to think ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this young fellow; and then putting in another cartridge, he floored the third, and they were all dead in less than a minute. It's a fine rifle is that Martini-Henry, but I think you'll be displeased, as we had no business to go nigh the place; it ain't my fault, and I wouldn't have done it myself, you may ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Saturday night we realised that for our old friend the end was nigh. His eyes were deeply set about two-thirds of the way back toward his head and with one listless claw he picked at the serviette. The summons was very near; the dread ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... The well-nigh total disappearance of this species has been brought close home to us by the fact that there are less than half a dozen individuals alive in captivity, while in a wild state the bird is so rare as to be quite unobtainable. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... thy fair arm, of loveliest symmetry, Supports the fairer brow in thought reclining, While gleams with diamond fires thy poniard nigh In quick reflection of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... crept up close to him and whispered in his ear: "Don't you hear him Bushie? He's singing for you. Clip it! Panthers, bears, wolves, Indians! Pshaw! They'll never dare to come a-nigh you, with that voice ringing in their ears. Clip it! Ain't he singing for his little man to come? Clip it! I say. To be sure your mother will switch you well for running away, but who minds that? It's all over in the shake of a sheep's tail, and by the time you've ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... man still sulked over Simon to his wife, she was not deceived; and, the time drawing nigh for Simon's return, she began to look happily forward to a truly ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... For, see! a rainbow spans the sky: The walls are damp, the ditches smell, Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel; Hark! how the chairs and tables crack; Old Betty's joints are on the rack; Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, The distant hills are seeming nigh. How restless are the snorting swine,— The busy flies disturb the kine. Low o'er the grass the swallow wings; The cricket, too, how loud it sings: Puss on the hearth with velvet paws, Sits smoothing o'er her whisker'd jaws. Through the clear stream ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... Professor Morse had sat all the last day and evening of the session. At midnight the session would close. Assured by his friends that there was no possibility of the bill being reached, he left the Capitol and retired to his room at the hotel, dispirited, and well-nigh broken-hearted. As he came down to breakfast the next morning, a young lady entered, and, coming toward ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... impossible, task to attempt to check the progress of or extinguish the burning oil, and yet the assembled multitude attacked it with a will that seemed all the more heroic because of the well-nigh hopelessness of the labor. ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... perceived his assistant was "up to something," and connecting him with the anointing of the coils with oil that had rotted the varnish in one place, he issued an edict, shouted above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go nigh that big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!" Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi to be near the big machine, it was plain sense and decency to keep ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the hill, shouting for joy and bearing roots and berries in his hand. But when he reached the spot where Nada was, he found that her senses had left her through hunger, cold, and weariness. She lay upon the ground like one asleep, and over her stood a jackal that fled as he drew nigh. Now it would seem that there but two shoots to the stick of Umslopogaas. One was to save himself, and the other to lie down and die by Nada. Yet he found a third, for, undoing the strips of his moocha, he made ropes of them, ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... would have thought of finding you here," he said, obviously much pleased at the circumstance. "I wonder now if my daughter knows you are so nigh at hand. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... and articles in these pages, we have spoken of the severe crisis through which the old established, or "Leblanc," process has now for some years been passing. It is, in fact, pushed well nigh out of the running by the newer process, known as the "ammonia-soda" process, and would have had to give up the battle before now were it not for the fact that one of its by-products, bleaching powder, cannot, so far, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... used her hands with a sudden, vivid effect, or flashed her white teeth in a smile, every head in the carriage was turned towards her; and when, in addition, she was overtaken by a fit of loquacity, she was well-nigh ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... my body, far away, Out of my body, away for shame, Out of my body, fly away, Out of my body, round about face, Out of my body, go away, Into my body, come not back, Towards my body, do not approach, Towards my body, draw not nigh, My body torture not. By Shamash the mighty, be ye foresworn. By Ea, the lord of everything, be ye foresworn. By Marduk, the chief magician of the gods, be ye foresworn. By the fire-god, be ye foresworn. From my ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... cloaked and coated, And buttoned up to the chin; And soon as he comes a-nigh the door We open and let ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... "Nigh where Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams, To wash the sooty Naiads in the Thames, There stands a structure on a rising hill, Where tyros take their freedom out ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... afforded me great amusement to gaze on their variegated ribbon-like endless lengths. Hour after hour passed without our coming to the termination of these floating weeds. If my astonishment increased, my patience was well-nigh exhausted. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... tree in the spot preferred by each one of her children, but as that was out of the question, in the mother's mind of course her sons came first. And this preference must be indulged the more particularly that Warner—the elder of her two boys, her idol and her grief—was slowly, well-nigh imperceptibly, but none the less surely, drifting away from her. A boyish imprudence, a cold, over-exertion, the old story which is so familiar, so hopeless, so endless in its repetition and its pathos. When interests were diverse, the ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... the risen, glorified head. Every member is quickened together with Christ, raised up and seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus (ii:5-6). And furthermore we read that the members of this body, that is, all true believers, saved by grace and born again, are made nigh by the blood of Christ, and have access by one Spirit unto the Father. "Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... familiar, as you know. I helped a man to die, some few weeks since, Warped even from his go-cart to one end— The living on princes' smiles, reflected from A mighty herd of favourites. No mean trick He left untried, and truly well-nigh wormed All traces of God's finger out of him: Then died, grown old. And just an hour before, Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes, He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice Said that in spite of thick air and closed doors God told him it was June; and he knew well ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... anything about the smokey condition of Pittsburgh, I was the victim of an adventoor which come mitey nigh puttin a quietuss, for a permanent period, onto my terrestial egistance. Ide just arroven into the city, from the northern part of the State. Thinkin Ide like to look the city over a bit, I sholdered my bloo cotton umbreller and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... bear thee safe, O impetuous Achilles: but the fatal day draws nigh to thee; nor are we to blame, but a mighty deity and violent destiny. For not by our laziness, or sloth, have the Trojans stripped the armour from the shoulders of Patroclus; but the bravest of the gods, whom fair-haired Latona brought forth, slew him among the front ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... in the destruction of Jerusalem. Christ had given His disciples warning, and all who believed His words watched for the promised sign. "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies," said Jesus, "then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out."(41) After the Romans under Cestius had surrounded the city, they unexpectedly abandoned the siege when everything seemed favorable for an immediate attack. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... the home of unselfish and consecrated lives. As he grew older, his bright eyes studied the native character, emotional, genial, unstable; he saw the wholesale conversions to Christianity, speedy, happy, and well-nigh barren of fruit. Going to America for his education, he completed it at Williams College under the presidency of Mark Hopkins. Garfield said that his conception of a university was a pine bench with Mark Hopkins at one end and a student at the other. He gave a stimulus ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... 1831 again the Negroes of northwest Jamaica, impatient because of the slow progress of the emancipation, arose in revolt and destroyed nearly three and a half million dollars' worth of property, well-nigh ruining the planters there. The next year two hundred and fifty-five thousand slaves were set free, for which the planters were paid nearly thirty million dollars. There ensued a discouraging condition of industry. The white officials sent out in these days were arbitrary and corrupt. ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... all, I nigh upon forgot my arrant. Here's a letter they giv' me fur Lurindy, at the post-office; ev'rybody else's afeard ter come up here";—and by-and-by she brought it up from under all she'd stowed away there. "Thet ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... get any better. When the teachers come Monday morning to tote us to the Center, they begged to take Georgie to the doctor. Maw was might' nigh crazy by then, and she got into the Ford without her head combed, Georgie in her lap. Maw said she never had ridden so fast. She thought her last-day was come, with the fences streaking past her lickety-split. And when they come to the doctor he looked ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... my visits, and judged from my welcome that my triumph was nigh at hand. But love fills our minds with idle visions, and draws a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "Pretty nigh certain, master," was the response, and the man held the lantern aloft and glanced round. "It's a rough enough way and no mistake, if you can call it a way; but it's the only one I knows of. But don't you fret, sir. Master Will can take care of himself, ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... they began to draw nigh, the dogs from afar were instantly aware of them, both by the scent, and by the sound of footsteps, and, yelling furiously, they charged from all sides against Heracles, son of Amphitryon, while with faint yelping, on ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... at sunset we should be less easily followed; on the other hand, we should have greater difficulty in finding our way and be sooner missed. It was generally about sunset that Mamcuna sent for me, and I knew that at this time it would be well-nigh impossible for Senora de la Vega to leave Chimu's house without being observed and questioned, perhaps followed. So when we met as agreed, I told her that I had decided to make the attempt on the next morning, and asked her to be in a grove of ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... nigh to history more than once, but she has escaped the actual making of it. Even the great battle that takes its name from the town was fought seven miles away, while the Duke of Normandy, as we have seen, landed as far distant as Pevensey, ten miles in the west. ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... they dwelt in the pits; in earth and in stocks they hid them like badgers, in wood and in wilderness, in heath and in fen, so that well nigh no man might find any Briton, except they were in castle, or in burgh inclosed fast. When they heard of this word, that Constantin was in the land, then came out of the mountains many thousand men; they leapt out of the wood as if it were deer. Many hundred ...
— Brut • Layamon
... live there. One night Charlie Williams, what lives in Marshall, and runs a store out by the T. & P. Hospital git drunk and goes out there to sleep and while he sleepin' that same woman come in and nigh choked him to death. Ain't nobody ever live in that ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... her back. More than a father to her: for I have given her a life her unnatural father had well-nigh taken away: Shall I not cherish the fruits of my own benefaction? I was earnest in my vows to marry, and my ardour to urge the present time was a real ardour. But extreme dejection, with a mingled delicacy, that in her dying moments I doubt ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... present, the said Master Sueur hath divers other admirable moulds to cast in brass for his Majesty, and among the rest, that famous Diana of Ephesus. But the great Horse with his Majesty upon it, twice as great as the life, and now well nigh finished, will compare with that of the New Bridge at Paris, or those others at Florence and Madrid, though made by Sueur, his master John de Bologna, that rare workman, who not long since lived ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... vegetation was rank in proportion. The annual growth of all this plant life had been dying and rotting on the ground for ages, and the water would filter through this decomposing mass, and become well-nigh poisonous. An order was soon issued that we should get all water for drinking and cooking purposes from the Yazoo river, and boil it before using, but it was impossible to compel complete obedience to such an order. When men got thirsty, they would drink whatever was handy,—orders to the contrary ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... replied, "if we hadn't been well-nigh starving we shouldn't have been able to carry out ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... occasion escapes my memory—speaking to her before others words that even alone she could not have listened to with dignity. I was there, and Sapt; the colonel's small eyes had gleamed in anger. "I should like to shut his mouth for him," I heard him mutter, for the king's waywardness had well-nigh worn out even his devotion. The thing, of which I will say no more, happened a day or two before I was to set out to meet Mr. Rassendyll. I was to seek him this time at Wintenberg, for I had been recognized the year before at ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... least she might hope to be spared long years of weary desolation, and death, come when he might, would be a friend. In other hours the all but certainty of her doom was a thought so terrible that reason well-nigh failed before it. Was there no hope for her for ever, nothing but the grave to rest her tired heart? Why had fate dealt with her so cruelly? She looked round and saw none upon whom had fallen ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... fatalism, or servile acquiescence, or optimism shrinking from action. The sage no doubt must many a time forfeit some measure of the blind, the head-strong, fanatical zeal that has enabled some men, whose reason was fettered and bound, to achieve results that are nigh superhuman; but therefore none the less is it certain that no man of upright soul should go forth in search of illusion or blindness, of zeal or vigour, in a region inferior to that of his noblest hours. To do our ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the camp made sleep well-nigh impossible—a bad preparation for the only long ride of this excursion. Setting off at dark (4.20 a.m., March 18th), we finished the monotonous Wady Kuwayd, which mouths upon the rolling ground falling coastwards. The track then struck to the north-west, across and sometimes down the network ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... intellect. A patron of the great writers of the day, she encouraged Corneille and the older poets and emboldened the younger by her appreciation. Henriette wept over the Andromaque when Racine read it to her, until the happy youth's head was well-nigh turned by what he considered the most fortunate beginning of its destiny. This combination of beauty, charm, and intellect, found more frequently, perhaps, in France than in any other country, rendered Madame the most irresistible ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... not to imply That he assaulted, bit, or tore us; In fact he never ventured nigh Except when food was set ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... to my lonely life out here and lived for nearly two years. At last, in September 1828, a mail arrived from India bringing a letter from my wife and Indian papers. The news which they brought well-nigh drove me mad." ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... never earnest is at times well-nigh as wearisome as a temperament that is never gay; there comes a time when, if you can never touch to any depth, the ceaseless froth and brightness of the surface will create a certain sense of impatience, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... pass," said his interested lady friend, as the day of Mrs. Eager's departure drew nigh. "She is a woman in a thousand, and will make one of the best of wives. Think, too, of her social position, her wealth and her large cultivation. An opportunity like this is never presented more than once ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... is the approach of disease of the hip-joint, of white swelling of the knee, of consumption,—all curable if taken in hand at the very first, all well-nigh hopeless when they have once unmasked ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... tolerant, yet subject to instinctive rigidities of which as a mere man he was less capable. And during all this companionable month he never quite lost that feeling with which he had set out on the first day as if to visit an adored work of art, a well-nigh impersonal desire. The future—inexorable pendant to the present he took care not to face, for fear of breaking up his untroubled manner; but he made plans to renew this time in places still more delightful, where the sun was hot and there were strange things to see and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... into the palm of his hand. There was some rare big ones in one of the bottles—enough to have brought all those fools tumbling out of Africa if they'd know of them. From some papers they found on the chap Turold said he'd must a-been prospecting in nigh every ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... confusion among his fellows, and then proceeds to head them in a determined bolt across the stream. Unfortunately for the women in the kajavehs, the mud and water together prove to be deeper than the mule expected to find them, and the additional fright of finding himself in a well-nigh swamped condition, causes him to struggle violently to get out again. In so doing he bursts whatever fastenings may have bound him and his burden together, scrambles ashore, and leaves the kajavehs floating on ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... beginning of the thirteenth century. Indeed, the amiable and profound historian is of opinion, after the most mature deliberation, that 'God himself must have arranged all this in favour of so great and good a prince; and knowing that his end was nigh, inspired him with the idea of undertaking this enterprise, that he might have the merit of having completed it; otherwise, how should he have thought of leading out his army in the dead of winter to cross countries covered with ice ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... piece-work I visits every farm in the parish. The other men they works for one farmer for two or three or maybe twenty years; but I goes very nigh all round the place—a fortnight here and a week there, and then a month somewhere else. So I knows every hare in the parish, and all his runs and all the double mounds and copses, and the little covers in the corners of the ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... Elizabeth offers to give Lord Oxford "besydes her daughter ... ten and thirty hundred pound a year, which will before twenty years passe bee nigh 6000L a yeare besydes two houses well furnisht. A Greate fortune for my Ld. yett it is doubted wheather hee will endanger the losse of the King's favor for so fayre a woman and ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... mean—to its devotees. It must be, and I know it is so, that every one such feels ashamed of himself afterwards, and calls himself by hard but honest adjectives when the "bad head" period comes on.) I am thankful to state that our other cases recovered, though not until almost all hope had well-nigh gone. ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... been a good lad," the old man said, mollified, "and I don't know what I should have done without you. I am nigh past work now, but in the ten years you have been with me things have always gone well with me, and I have money enough to make a shift with for the rest of my life, even if I work no longer. But I don't like this freak that you have taken into your ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... overboard at the same moment that Jack bounded into the sea. In other moment we met in deep water, clasped each other round the neck, and sank, as a matter of course, to the bottom! We were well-nigh choked, and instantly struggled to the surface, where Peterkin was spluttering about like a wounded duck, laughing and crying by turns, and choking ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... afterwards declared, had said in answer to some friendly words of remonstrance on the Sunday night preceding the meeting of the court, that the girl was as heartless and cold as a stone. No one need worry on her account. It was plain to Burtis that the young fellow was well-nigh insane about her, and he had sent a letter ten days before to Langston urging him to come and look after his kinsman; but Langston was far away at the time and never knew that Willett had quit the sea-shore and gone back to the charmer in mid-continent,—never knew, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... troubled with some pain got by wind and cold, and so up with good peace of mind, hoping that my wife will mind her house and servants, and so to the office, and being too soon to sit walked to my viail, which is well nigh done, and I believe I may have it home to my mind next week. So back to my office, and there we sat all the morning, I till 2 o'clock before I could go to dinner again. After dinner walked forth to my instrument maker, and there had my rule he made me lay now so perfected, that I think in all ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... two tasks, Peter's time was well-nigh used up. It was especially drawn upon when the taking of evidence ceased and the drafting of the reports began. Ray's notes proved hopeless, so Peter copied out his neatly, and let Ray have them, rather glad that irrelevant and useless evidence was ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... careful of all my things,' said Vessons wistfully. 'I hanna slep away from this room for nigh twenty year. That bird's ne'er slep without me. He'll miss me. He unna sing for anybody else.' He always asserted this, and the bird always belied it by singing to Reddin and any chance visitor. But Vessons continued to believe it. There are some things that it is necessary ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... up there, you young devil! You come mighty nigh dishing the whole outfit, but now you're here, you'll earn your ten bucks I was fool enough to give you, but nothing more, do you hear that?" and the man leered into his freckled young face with an ugly ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... I not been nigh a mother To thy sweetness—tell me, dear? Have we not loved one another Tenderly, from year to year; Since our dying mother mild Said with accents undefiled,[32] 'Child, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... exhausted victim, nigh to death, As night the third long day of agony Is ending, murmurs with his last ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... was merely the daily feed of the black pig, which the colored female assisted the General in preparing. The General seemed very good-natured, and commenced a mathematical description of the ingredients of the mixture, when suddenly there came a fierce blow from behind, which well nigh tilted him deep into the foaming liquid. I grabbed the broad expanse of his nether garments, while the wench screamed, and was only quieted when she found him safe under her broad lee. A deep sonorous voice responded:—'Stir quicker in the feed!' I turned to see from ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... nigher to our system, and now I could see the shine of Jupiter. Later, I distinguished the cold, blue gleam of the earthlight.... I had a moment of bewilderment. All about the sun there seemed to be bright, objects, moving in rapid orbits. Inward, nigh to the savage glory of the sun, there circled two darting points of light, and, further off, there flew a blue, shining speck, that I knew to be the earth. It circled the sun in a space that seemed to be no more ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... chancellor of the exchequer; it was declined by Messrs. Tierney, Huskisson, and Sturges Bourne; but finally accepted by Mr. Hemes, who had been secretary of the treasury under Lord Liverpool's administration. The nomination of Mr. Herries, who was brought up in the Vansittart school, was well nigh the cause of breaking up the cabinet. The Whigs objected to him on political grounds; and the Marquis of Lansdowne waited upon the king to tender his resignation. His chief objection, however, was, that he was said to have been a nominee of the king; and when it was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... safe time the poor simple soul will have," said Grandma Padgett, making her spectacles glitter at the landlord, "gettin' through the creek that nigh drowned us. I suppose, you have a ford that ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... to recruit their energies at San Gabriel, but the inactivity of Rivera did not please him, and, as things were not going well at San Gabriel, he soon returned and started northward. It was a weary journey, the rains having made some parts of the road well-nigh impassable, and even the women had to walk. Yet on the tenth of March they all arrived safely and happily at Monterey, where Serra himself came to ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... the Westcar Papyrus deals with the birth of the three sons of Ra, who have been mentioned above. When the day drew nigh in which the three sons were to be born, Ra, the Sun-god, ordered the four goddesses, Isis, Nephthys,[1] Meskhenet,[2] and Heqet,[3] and the god Khnemu,[4] to go and superintend the birth of the three children, so that when they grew up, and were exercising the functions of rule throughout ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... such was the case, he kept his own counsel. When the fallen man and mare had scrambled out of the hole, which they did before Benson had offered to help them, or Ashburner had time to be of any assistance, it appeared that she had sprained her off foreankle, and he his nigh wrist. But they were close to the main road; by good luck a boy was found to conduct the animal home, and by a still greater piece of good luck the Robinsons' carriage happened to be coming along just then, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... He was still engaged to her—for it would be monstrous to persist in his withdrawal. He must accept the situation which she decreed. He owed that to her loyalty. But how to continue the correspondence? It was hard enough to write from Salisbury Plain; from here it was well-nigh impossible. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... is insensible to the attractions of woman. The comparatively small number of war formulas is explained by the fact that the last war in which the Cherokees, as a tribe, were engaged on their own account, closed with the Revolutionary period, so that these things were well nigh forgotten before the invention of the alphabet, a generation later. The Cherokees who engaged in the Creek war and the late American civil war fought in the interests of the whites, and their leaders were subordinated to white officers, hence there was not ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... praised, in Cowley, the ease and unaffected structure of the sentences. Cowley may be placed at the head of those who cultivated a clear and natural style. Dryden, Tillotson, and sir William Temple followed. Addison, Swift, and Pope, with more correctness, carried our language well nigh to perfection. Of Addison, Johnson was used to say, "he is the Raphael of essay writers." How he differed so widely from such elegant models, is a problem not to be solved, unless it be true, that he took ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... learned more thoroughly the futility of opposing their will. In addition, the persecution he had suffered from the pack had made the pack less to him in the scheme of things, and man more. He had not learned to be dependent on his kind for companionship. Besides, Kiche was well-nigh forgotten; and the chief outlet of expression that remained to him was in the allegiance he tendered the gods he had accepted as masters. So he worked hard, learned discipline, and was obedient. Faithfulness and willingness characterised ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... silent for a moment, "Well, no; I haven't," he said. "But, I spoke to her mother, and women is always talking. Mind, I don't know what our Polly would say to you, but I do think she expects something. There's a chap lives nigh to us who used always to be sneaking round; but she has snubbed him terribly this month past. So my wife tells me. You come and try, Mr. Newton, and then ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... propositions with the exploded "Mercantile Theory" is very satisfactorily established by the Edinburgh reviewer; and it is certainly humbling to see a man of his ability coming forward to revive doctrines which had well nigh gone down to oblivion. On the subject where Colonel Torrens conceives himself strongest, the distribution of the precious metals, the reviewer has given a very able reply, though some points are left ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... Thee every hour. Stay Thou near by; Temptations lose their power When Thou art nigh. I need Thee, oh I, need Thee, Every hour I need Thee; O bless me now, my Saviour, ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... you again, but that she, poor lady, is anxious to possess the books soon, as she never looks forward to living through a year: and she finds that Jeremy Taylor sounds a good note of preparation for that last hour which she looks upon as drawing nigh. I myself think she will live much longer: as she is wonderfully healthy for her time of life—seventy-six. {45} Sometimes I talk to her about you: and she loves you by report. You never grudge any trouble for your friends: but as this is a little act of kindness ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... youths followed, staying just far enough behind to keep them in sight. While the girls were peeling the bark, the youths kept themselves hidden. After awhile they no longer heard the sound of the maidens at work. Whereupon they began to creep up to where they were. When they drew nigh, behold, the maidens were in the act of taking off their clothes. The first to disrobe flung herself down on the ground and lay there. 'Pray, what are these girls going to do?' was the feeling in the hearts of the youths. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... quiet old streets. The church and parish-house and a large hall were across the common, the library and museum nearer the centre of the town—all dignified, rather stately, very attractive buildings in harmonizing styles of architecture, whose low and rambling character, with the ivy that well-nigh covered them, and the wonderful green of their lawns, gave them an air of age, particularly appealing to one whose home had been in the West. Handsome houses and charming cottages bespoke their attention as they walked through the wide avenue with double rows of elms on either ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... before King Richard arrived, having been driven from his course by tempests, well-nigh cast ashore, and having besides gone through many adventures. Three weeks later, the whole of the army of the Crusaders were gathered around Messina, where it was intended to remain some little time before starting. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty |
