"Sooner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... elude Brumle-Knute's vigilance; for the Sons of the Vikings had good reasons for fearing that he might interfere with their enterprise. They therefore waited until Brumle-knute was invited by the dairymaid to sit down to dinner. No sooner had the door closed upon his stooping figure, than they stole out through a hole in the fence, crept on all-fours among the tangled dwarf-birches and the big gray boulders, and following close in the track of their leader, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... minimum demand for legislation should be, at the very least, that all preparations of this kind should have their composition stated with every portion of them that is vended to the public. Assuredly the champions of womanhood will have to take this matter up soon, and the sooner the better. There is no need to be a fanatic, there is no need even to be a teetotaler, in order to satisfy oneself that here is a crying abuse which is ruining the unwarned and the unprotected up and down the land, and which is quite definitely and obviously within the capacity of legislation to ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... somnambulist. Editha, moved by unreasoning instinct, determined to see the Quakeress again, also the man who now lay dead, hoping that from him mayhap she might glean the real solution of that mystery which sooner or later would undoubtedly ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... and was answered by floods of tears. "They only come to stare at a poor wild Indian girl, and she would not be made a show of. She was like a queen once, and every one obeyed her; but here every one looked down upon her." But when Mrs. Leigh asked her, whether she would sooner go back to the forests, the poor girl clung to her like a baby, and entreated not to be sent away, "She would sooner be a slave in the kitchen here, than go back ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... them, I can't tell you why, and you mustn't ask me. You have been very good to me, and you are going to do more for me than ever was done to a girl like me before, but sooner than meet them I would run away again as I did from Melville Gardens. I would, really, but you must not ask me why; there are some ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... he continued, "that Karamaneh's room is directly below your own. In the event of any outcry, you would be sooner upon the scene than I should, for instance, because I sleep on the opposite side of the ship. This circumstance I take to be the explanation of the wireless message, which, because of its hesitancy (a piece of ingenuity very characteristic of the group), ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... States sooner or later passed "Personal Liberty laws," which, without directly assuming to nullify the Federal statute, aimed to defeat its enforcement. They contained such provisions as the exemption of State officials and ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... to the style and the manner of the Bible, in the same way as the general humanistic movement led the European mind back upon its own steps along the paths marked out by the classic languages. No sooner did his work become known in the north countries and in the Orient than it raised up imitators. Mendes and Wessely, leaders of literary revivals, the one at Amsterdam, the other in Germany, are but the disciples and successors of the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... the narrow strip of comparatively level country which intervenes between those enormous barriers and the Mediterranean Sea, and forcing a passage at the point where the last of the Alps melt, as it were, into the first and lowest of the Apennine range. No sooner did he begin to concentrate his troops towards this region, than the Austrian general, Beaulieu, took measures for protecting Genoa, and the entrance of Italy. He himself took post with one column of ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the dust from her gold and silver gown, and polished up her bright little gold crown, and made herself as neat and dainty as a Princess should be; for, in Nonamia, one never knows what may happen next, and it is just as well to be prepared. And, in fact, no sooner was she quite tidy than the West Wind came hurrying along with her castle in the air; and the Princess gave a shout of joy and sprang inside it; and the West Wind blew, and blew, and blew, until the castle that was packed full of happiness, ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... Old Heck. The widow had not yet exposed her hand in that suffragette movement or whatever it was. He dreaded the form in which it might, sooner or later, break out. But at that he would be glad to have it over. At present he felt as though he were sitting on the edge of a volcano, or above an unexplored blast of dynamite at the bottom of a well. Meanwhile he would have to wait ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... are on solid ground. He thinks that Fate is with him, and that, in taking risks, he is infallible. But the best system breaks at political roulette sooner or later. You have got to work for something outside yourself, something that is bigger than the game, or ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that, owing to previous arrangements, the piece must be withdrawn in the height of its popularity;" i.e., "Not drawing a shilling, company fearfully expensive, sooner we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... stress of weather and time, all played their part in the general desecrations which sooner or later followed; far the most serious of these visible damages reflected upon us to-day being the malpractices occurring at the Revolution, whether at the hands of a sans culotte or of the most respectable ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... think, he likely would have disdained to play the part of a hidden spy; but he had acted without thinking, and no sooner was he concealed than he realized that it was too late. So he smiled mockingly at himself, and awaited developments. He had heard and seen enough, since he had been in the Dean's employ, to understand the suspicion in which the owner ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... joy. Red flags were displayed everywhere and solemnly saluted by the officers and men of the Czar's army. But the rejoicing was premature, as the events of a few hours clearly proved. With that fatal vacillation which characterized his whole life, Nicholas II had no sooner issued his Manifesto than he surrendered once more to the evil forces by which he was surrounded and harked back to the old ways. The day following the issuance of the Manifesto, while the people were still rejoicing, there began a series ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... women who prefer to undergo the dangers of abortion. Besides these, there are other women, especially in the higher walks of life, who, in order to conceal a "slip," or out of aversion for the inconveniences of pregnancy, of child-birth and of nursing, perhaps, out of fear of sooner losing their charms, and then forfeiting their standing with either husband or male friends, incur such criminal acts, and, for hard cash, find ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... another lake, thickly studded with islands, beyond that on which they now were; and still beyond a rocky portage over which they hoped to carry their canoes, and a great river which flowed far down to the mighty waters of the sea. If they met not the foe sooner they would press onward to this stream, and there perhaps surprise some town of the Mohawks, whose settlements approached its banks. This same liquid route in later days was to be traversed by warlike hosts both ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of sleeplessness, anxiety and fatigue had prostrated the vital forces of the young nobleman, and so, no sooner had the train started, than he sat himself comfortably back among his cushions, and, being now in a great measure relieved from suspense, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. This sleep continued almost unbroken through the night, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... dear, sweet soul is perfectly broken-down by what he had to do. But he had to do it, and he wishes you to know at, once that he did it. He dreads the effect upon Ellen, and we must leave it to your judgment about telling her. Of course, sooner or later she must find it out. You need not be alarmed about Richard. He is just nauseated a little, and he will be all right as soon as his stomach is settled. He thinks you ought to have this letter before you sail, and with affectionate good-byes ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is not usually much in a text-book of arithmetic that excites fond memories in a boy of thirteen. Often the reverse. But I had no sooner taken that well-thumbed book from its wrapping of brown paper, than another pang of homesickness went through me; and this time it was ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... Hong Kong, eight hundred miles south, by the mail steamer which sails at daylight. Our usual good fortune attends us. The monsoon blew us to port one night sooner than we expected. A night saved was quite an object, as the Geelong is a small craft, and her rocking means something. Vandy was very ill, but I managed to report regularly at table as usual. We slept on shore Tuesday night, and the morning revealed one of the prettiest ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... reason for fixing the foundation in the eighth century, perhaps rather sooner, and it then was at a small distance from the buildings. The town stood upon the hill, whose centre was the Old Cross; consequently, the ring of houses that now surrounds the church, from the bottom of Edgbaston-street, part of Spiceal-street, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... increasingly evident that the logical result of state charity, or call it state insurance to avoid controversy, over a large field, and including millions of beneficiaries and claimants, is that the army of officials, the expenses of administration, and the payments themselves must sooner or later break the back of the state morally, politically, and financially. It rapidly increases parasitism among the receivers; makes a powerful though indifferent army of state servants of the distributers; and loses financially to the state far more in expense of ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... his father started their planting. But no sooner had the first plants been embedded than fish darted in to nibble them. Even the roots disappeared ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... No sooner said than done. Pinocchio went out into the street and filled his lungs with the fresh morning air."Ah! here, at least, one can breathe. It is a pity that I am beginning to feel hungry! Strange how things go wrong sometimes! Take the lessons - " ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... differences, and regulate the interests of such as are at variance, and are preparing to go to law. Hear them one after the other, and propose terms of accommodation to them. Above all things, give them to understand, that they shall find their account in a friendly reconciliation, sooner than in casting themselves into eternal suits, which, without speaking of their conscience, and their credit, ever cost much money, and more trouble. I know well, that this will not be pleasing to the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... outset we might very well fail in our design: yet never dreamed of what proved to be the fact, that we should be left four-and-twenty hours in suspense and come within an ace of ultimate rejection. Captain Reid had primed himself; no sooner was the king on board, and the Hennetti question amicably settled, than he proceeded to express my request and give an abstract of my claims and virtues. The gammon about Queen Victoria's son might do for Butaritari; it was out of the question ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cadets are as superior to those admitted on the old system of nomination in these respects as in all others; that they learn even their drill more quickly, as indeed might be expected, for an intelligent person learns all things sooner than a stupid one; and that in general demeanor they contrast so favorably with their predecessors, that the authorities of the institutions are impatient for the day to arrive when the last remains of the old leaven shall have disappeared from the place. If this be so, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted; but the rich in that he is made low; because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... himself; "the pots have to be fired before they can be used." He set about this at once. He found two stones of equal size, placed them near each other and laid a third across these. He then placed three large pots upon them and made a hot fire under them. No sooner had the flame shot up than one of the pots cracked in two. "I probably made the fire too hot at first," ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... true marshalling of men's pursuits towards their fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand thus. First the amendment of their own minds. For the removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind. In the second place I set down wealth and means; which I know most men would have placed first, because of the general use which it beareth towards all variety of occasions. ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... gravely. 'The stars flash your thoughts over the whole universe. None are ever lost. Sooner or later they appear in visible shape. Some one, for instance, must have thought this flower long ago'—he stooped and picked a blue hepatica at their feet—'or it couldn't be ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... no sooner triumphed over ancient religion and France over Germany than an extraordinary reaction, inaptly termed the romantic, took place in poetry. Although Ultramontanism might be traced even in Friedrich Schlegel, this school of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Dutch war, which was declared in 1672, the object of which seems to have been the annihilation of the United Provinces as an independent state, a century sooner than Providence had decreed that calamitous event, met with great opposition in England, and every engine was put to work to satisfy the people of the truth of the Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury's averment, that the "States of Holland were England's ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... soon as the plants have attained sufficient size, transplant them into soil that is well enriched, and has been deeply stirred; setting them at the distance directed for the variety. If possible, the setting should be performed when the weather is somewhat dull, for then the plants become sooner established; but, if planted out in dry weather, they should be immediately and thoroughly watered. If the plants have been started in a hot-bed, they should be set out at the time ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... learned notice of my uncle's life and work in the Dictionary of National Biography, says of his poetry that "most of it" is "immortal." This, indeed, is the great, the mystic word that rings in every poet's ear from the beginning. And there is scarcely any true poet who is not certain that sooner or later his work will "put on immortality." Matthew Arnold expressed, I think, his own secret faith, in the beautiful lines of his early poem, "The Bacchanalia—or the ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... won the hearts of the apostles and early Christians, confront us from the earliest childhood as the infallible law of a mighty church, and demand of us an unconditional submission, which they call faith. Doubts arise sooner or later in the breast of every one who has the power of thinking and reverence for the truth; and then even when we are on the right road, to overcome our faith, the terrors of doubt and unbelief arise and disturb the tranquil development ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... is extraordinary, when one comes to think of it, how many of them have gone that way sooner or later. I ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... sooner. Might have saved you that rough handling," said the stranger. "But to tell you the truth, I thought you were going to eat Rob Roy McGregor up. Guess you could, too, for you handle your fists better than any man I have ever seen;—but you're just as weak as a half-drowned kitten. What's the matter; ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... certainly are having experiences, Zelphine, and are keeping your hand in for Christine and Lisa when they come along. I feel sorry for poor old Archie; but we all have to have our troubles in this line sooner or later." ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... never entered into his head. The time, indeed, was slowly but surely coming when the park should know no more not only its wild-cattle, but many a rich copse and shadowy glade. Not a stately oak nor far-spreading beech but was doomed, sooner or later, to be cut down, to prop for a moment the falling fortunes of their spendthrift owner; but at the time of which we speak there was no visible sign of the coming ruin. It is recorded of a brother prodigal, that after enormous losses and expenses, his steward informed him ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... the disposal of this wealth: they undertook to open roads for commerce and outlets for industry. But through this very combination the movement imposed on Prussia by her kings, and on Germany by Prussia, was bound to swerve from its course, whilst gathering speed and flinging itself forward. Sooner or later it was bound to escape from all control and become a plunge into ...
— The Meaning of the War - Life & Matter in Conflict • Henri Bergson
... disturbed." A buttoned hair-cloth lounge spread scrolling arms Under a crayon portrait on the wall Done sadly from an old daguerreotype. "That was the father as he went to war. She always, when she talked about war, Sooner or later came and leaned, half knelt Against the lounge beside it, though I doubt If such unlifelike lines kept power to stir Anything in her after all the years. He fell at Gettysburg or Fredericksburg, I ought to know—it makes a difference which: Fredericksburg wasn't Gettysburg, of course. ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... There had been another stock-killing, the night before, while he had been on the First Level. The locality of this latest depredation had confirmed his estimate of the beast's probable movements, and indicated where it might be prowling, tonight. He was certain that it was somewhere near; sooner or later, it would ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... form right ideas," said Jasper, "and plays that lead to an evil character. I teach no plays that lead to cruelty or deception. I would no sooner withhold amusements from my little ones than water, but my amusements, like the water, must be healthy ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... indifferent the teacher in this game of love, the sooner you learn," said Io. Kenkenes took the tiny hand extended toward him in emphasis ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Grose; but I cannot possibly be less generous and less disinterested, nor can by any means be the cause of your breaking your word. In short, I insist on your sending your notes to him—and as to my Life of Mr. Baker, if it is known to exist, nobody can make me produce it sooner than I please, nor at all if I do not please; so pray send your accounts, and leave me to be stout with our antiquaries, or curious. I shall not satisfy the latter, and don't care ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... which found Gay a guest at Mr. Rigby's villa; numerous the airy pasquinades which he left behind, and which made the fortune of his patron. Flattered by the familiar acquaintance of a man of station, and sanguine that he had found the link which would sooner or later restore him to the polished world that he had forfeited, Gay laboured in his vocation with enthusiasm and success. Willingly would Rigby have kept his treasure to himself; and truly he hoarded it for a long time, but it oozed out. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... hour after we arrived. Some imagine themselves privileged to intrude on a celebrity, thinking that those men will pardon the inconvenience for the flattery, but I do not subscribe to this opinion: I believe that nothing palls sooner than notoriety, and that nothing is more grateful to those who have suffered ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... for its restoration. That the whole matter was composed of the most delicate and intricate threads never occurred to him for an instant. Clare had loved him once. Clare would love him again—and the sooner it happened the ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... Blake," he greeted. "Sorry I was delayed." He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Only four minutes, however. I just couldn't get away sooner." ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Christ, I believe more than ever that this is the only real adventure of life. No step in life do I even compare with that one in permanent satisfaction. I deeply regret that I did not take it sooner. I do not feel that it mattered much whether I chose medicine for an occupation, or law, or education, or commerce, or any other way to justify my existence by working for a living as every honest man should. But ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... glad to hear it, and I trust you will have no more to do with that perilous traffic. For sooner or later it will bring all men into trouble who mix themselves up with it. And for you who can read the Scriptures in the tongues in which they were written there is the less excuse. I warn you to have a care, friend Anthony, in your walk and conversation. I ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... "We are still in good time, for it was not an hour from the moment we touched the island to our departure from it, and much of that time we have gained by the speed with which you rowed before. At any rate, we shall make out the island before sunset, and whether we arrive there a little sooner or later matters little. Harcourt, hand me that wineskin and a goblet. A draught will do us good after our climb and swim, and these good fellows will be none the worse for ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... Miss Stapylton answered, with utmost unconcern; "I would sooner marry a toad. Why, didn't you know, Olaf? I thought, of course, you knew you had been introducing athletics and better manners among the peerage! That sounds like a bill in the House of Commons, doesn't it?" Then Miss Stapylton ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... be positive," said Christabel; "but I believe I remember bolting it; and if I had not done so, it would have flown open sooner." ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Rothschild Havana which Babylon gave him, and they entered the hotel arm in arm. But no sooner had they mounted the steps than little Felix became the object of numberless greetings. It appeared that he had been highly popular among his quondam guests. At last they reached the managerial room, where Babylon was regaled on a chicken, and Racksole assisted him in the consumption ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... information about "Monsieur Mars." Neither did he appear to have told them that our engagement was definitely broken off. Their unsuspecting friendliness made me feel guilty, and I decided that I ought sooner or later to let ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... unborn; he would poison his own nascent love—at the suggestion of Ambition. Matters are now brought so far, that either he or I must submit to a reverse of fortune; since no concession can assuage his malice, divert his envy, or gratify his cupidity. No sooner could I raise myself up, from the consternation and stupefaction into which the certainty of these reports had thrown me, than I began to consider in what manner my own private afflictions might become the least noxious to the republic. Into whose arms, then, could I throw ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... dawned before the young man, whom we have left in the situation described in the last chapter, again opened his eyes. This was no sooner done, than he started up, and looked about him with the eagerness of one who suddenly felt the importance of accurately ascertaining his precise position. His rest had been deep and undisturbed; and when he awoke, it was with a clearness of intellect and a readiness of ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... write all I set out to, for word come to me, just as I wrote the last sentence above, that the ship was to leave port three days sooner than was fixed for when I began. I have been rare and busy since then, and I have no time to write more. And so 'twill be another year before you get a word from me; but I hope that when this letter ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Bandy-legs thought. Why should any one take the trouble to "bother" Obed Grimes, unless, indeed, he had been doing something that he hadn't ought to, and hence expected to be visited sooner or later by emissaries of the law, possibly in the shape of ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... young king retiring to a Buddhist monastery, and later making a tour through India and the Dutch East Indies, an undertaking until then without precedent among the potentates of eastern Asia. He had no sooner taken the reins of power than he gave evidence of his recognition of the importance of modern culture by abolishing slavery in Siam. He simplified court etiquette, no longer demanding, for example, that his subjects should approach him on hands and knees. Still ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... of the general's, to stay there "during this terrible time." That night Madame Nazimoff did not go to bed at all; and, as befitted a devoted wife, did not quit her husband's door. When the violent attack just before dawn quieted down, she made an attempt to go in to him; but no sooner did the sick man see her at the head of his couch, on which he had at last been persuaded to lie, than strong displeasure was expressed in his face, and, no longer able to speak, he made an angry motion of his hand toward her, and groaned heavily. The Sister of Mercy with ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... adventure, go to the making of a heroic age, its virtues and its vices, its obvious beauty and its hidden ugliness. In settled, social conditions, as has been well remarked, "most of the heroes would sooner or later have ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... thou impious, atheistical bag of drybones, cried the old king; dost thou profane our holy religion? Thou shalt have no daughter of mine, thou three-legged skeleton—Go and be buried and be damned, as thou must be; for as thou art dead, thou art past repentance: I would sooner give my child to a baboon, who has one leg more than thou hast, than bestow her on such a reprobate corpse—You had better give your one-legged infanta to the baboon, said the prince, they are fitter for one another—As much a corpse as I am, I am preferable to nobody; and who ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... motive. Had I been only a poet, those poems, such as they were, would have preserved my name; but being remembered for other grounds, better and worse, the name which I have left has been one cause why they have passed into oblivion, sooner than their perishable nature would have carried them thither. If in the latter part of my mortal existence I had misgivings concerning any of my writings, they were of the single one, which is still a living work, and which will continue so to be. I feared that speculative ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... day Alonzo told the Vincents of all that had passed, and it was agreed that Mrs. Vincent should visit at Melissa's father's that afternoon. She went at an early hour. Alonzo's feelings were on the rack until she returned, which happened much sooner than was expected; when she gave him ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... but with none the less pertinacity did I occupy myself in attempts to resolve the enigma. At last I reached a conclusion which wrought in me great wonder why I had not arrived at it before. "It is a servant of course," I said; "what a fool I am, not sooner to have thought of so obvious a solution!" And then I again repaired to the list—but here I saw distinctly that NO servant was to come with the party, although, in fact, it had been the original design to bring one—for the words ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the Virginia Levies, resolved to take possession of. With shouldered firelocks he marched a party of eighty men to the spot, losing but three on the way; and at once throwing themselves behind it, the remainder opened a hot fire upon the enemy. But no sooner were the flash and the report of their pieces perceived by the mob behind, than a general discharge was poured upon the little band, by which fifty were slain outright and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... intervals along the banks of the creek, though the channel was perfectly dry; but it appears that during the last wet season less rain has fallen than usual, and the soil has not been fully saturated, and consequently the waterholes have dried up sooner than in average years; although from the level character and geological features of the country, we are now on the tableland which divides the waters flowing to the north-west coast from those which fall into the Gulf of Carpentaria, the elevation of the country does not exceed ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... no use, since he was already out of pain.' 'No, no,' said the wretch, 'I am not, I am suffering as much as ever; shoot me, shoot me.' 'No, no,' said one of the fiends who was standing about the sacrifice they were roasting, 'he shall not be shot. I would sooner slacken the fire, if that would increase his misery;' and the man who said this was, as we ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... lark From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise, I can conduct you, Lady, to a low But loyal cottage, where you may be safe Till further quest. LADY. Shepherd, I take thy word, And trust thy honest-offered courtesy, Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds, With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls And courts of princes, where it first was named, And yet is most pretended. In a place Less warranted than this, or less secure, I cannot be, that I should ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... why were you not here sooner? I have been waiting an hour,' was the rejoinder, in a tone of voice that belied the radiant joy of ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... said, 'if death were sitting on that pile of stones, I would alight! I do not blame, I thank you; I now know how I appear to others; but sooner than draw breath beside a man who can so think of me, I would - O!' ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tickled a heap over it. Indeed, to go back to the commencement, I guess it was to please her he got it up. At least, that's the way it looked to me, for she no sooner said she'd like to see a dance with this crowd at the Ferry than he said there should be one, and I should get up a supper. I tell you that young chap sets store by that little girl of yours, though she does sass him a heap. They're a ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... as mine, but it's only too much theirs. People are always traceable, in England, when tracings are required. Something, sooner or later, happens; somebody, sooner or later, breaks the holy calm. ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... wants it back worst way or she would never have bought it. If we put it on Miss Owens' desk, sooner or later the guilty one will try to get it. No one else will want to ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... cause the fourpenny-piece to be sufficiently respected to procure him something like directions how to proceed as well to get rid of his horse, as to procure access to the house, the door of which stood frowningly shut. In this, however, he was mistaken, for no sooner had the woman uttered the words, 'Well, you can come in and see,' than she flaunted into the interior of the room, and commenced a regular series of assaults upon the furniture, throwing the hearth-rug ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... after the publication of his Voyage du jeune Anacharsis, he was elected a member of the French Academy. During the Revolution Barthelemy was arrested as an aristocrat. The Committee of Public Safety, however, were no sooner informed by the duchess of Choiseul of the arrest, than they gave orders for his immediate release, and in 1793 he was nominated librarian of the Bibliotheque Nationale. He refused this post but resumed his old functions as keeper of medals, and enriched the national ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... came to Fort Snelling from Winona, as recruits for the Seventh Regiment, but enlisted instead in the Sigel Guards. All the recruits were enlisted and sworn in as privates except the drummer, the period of enlistment being "for three years unless sooner discharged." ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... the world, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with one— If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 'Twas folly not sooner to shun: And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that whatever it lost me, It could not deprive me ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... his school at the priory of Maisonceile (1120). His lectures, now framed in a devotional spirit, were heard again by crowds of students, and all his old influence seemed to have returned; but old enmities were revived also, against which he was no longer able as before to make head. No sooner had he put in writing his theological lectures (apparently the Introductio and Theolo giam that has come down to us), than his adversaries fell foul of his rationalistic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Charging him with the heresy of Sabellius ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... if parents wish to encourage a match, young people are thrown together as much as possible. However big the gathering, you are somehow always paired off with the eligible parti until you grow to loathe the man, and would sooner become an "old ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... before my face, that the broken bone was a judgment upon thee. D—n it, says I, how can that be? Did he not come by it in defence of a young woman? A judgment indeed! Pox, if he never doth anything worse, he will go to heaven sooner than all the parsons in the country. He hath more reason to glory in it than to be ashamed of it."—"Indeed, sir," says Jones, "I have no reason for either; but if it preserved Miss Western, I shall always think it the happiest ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... conservation move onward together, and what is Romantic to-day becomes Classic to-morrow. Romanticism is fluid Classicism. It is the emotional stimulus informing Romanticism which calls music into life, but no sooner is it born, free, untrammelled, nature's child, than the regulative principle places shackles upon it; but it is enslaved only that it may ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... "we can; but we shall get tired of walking about much sooner if it rains, than if it were pleasant weather. However, I am not very sorry, for I should ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... couldn't very easily break one.... It is that way with me, Mallett.... Besides, when I think, perhaps, that Jack Dysart is a trifle overbearing and too free with his snubs, I go somewhere and cool off; and I think that in his heart he must like me as well as I do him because, sooner or later, we always manage to drift together again.... That is one reason why I am ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... at least ennuyee, and began to miss excitement, and feel blindly about her for something to make life interesting. She was gifted with far more capacity than had ever been exercised, and was of a large enough nature to have grown sooner weary of trifles than most women of her class. She might have been an artist, but she drew like a young lady; she might have been a prophetess, and Byron was her greatest poet. It is no wonder that she wanted something she ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... only reached our destination a little sooner we should have cut off their retreating troops and given them a very warm time. But now that they had joined their comrades at Ladysmith, we had to be prepared for an attack from their combined forces, and that before the Transvaalers, ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... did a day's work, good or bad, plase your honour, all the time he was with me, and I had the doctor to him five times, any how. And so, plase your honour, it is what I expect your honour will stand my friend, for I'd sooner come to your honour for justice than to any other in all Ireland. And so I brought him here before your honour, and expect your honour will make him pay me the grazing, or tell me, can I process him for it at the next ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... you sooner! All these dreadful years I have lived at God's feet—with one prayer: let me help my Bertie, let me see my brother's face," moaned Beryl, pressing her lips to the clammy, fleshless hand she held ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Prime-minister was a man to whose disposition anything resembling persecution was foreign and repugnant. Before his predecessor's unhappy death he had already discussed with him the propriety of abolishing laws conceived in such a spirit; and he no sooner found himself at the head of the government than he prepared a bill to carry out his views. He drew a distinction between the acts inflicting penalties and those which only imposed disabilities. With ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... one fact that I wish very strongly to impress upon you, namely, that you have, by your diligent study of the past Winter, gained something which is of priceless value to you, and, if used aright, something which must some day, sooner or later, prove of particular advantage. This practical knowledge of shorthand which you now possess is something which cannot be bought or sold; it is something which you can never wholly forget; ...
— Silver Links • Various
... persuade me, that your ends, And purposes are made to what they are, Before my answer! O, you equal gods, Whose justice not a world of wolf-turn'd men Shall make me to accuse, howe'er provoked; Have I for this so oft engaged myself? Stood in the heat and fervour of a fight, When Phoebus sooner hath forsook the day Than I the field, against the blue-eyed Gauls, And crisped Germans? when our Roman eagles Have fann'd the fire, with their labouring wings, And no blow dealt, that left not death behind it? When I have ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... saint between us. I have searched my own heart, I know myself, and I own I do not wish to die as she did. If you tired out Lady Dudley, who is a very distinguished woman, I, who have not her passionate desires, should, I fear, turn coldly against you even sooner than she did. Come, let us suppress love between us, inasmuch as you can find happiness only with the dead, and let us ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... the unity and construction of the poems, the reader sooner or later discovers the true solution to be, that the dependence, cohesion, and final reconciliation of the whole are in the Personality of the poet himself. As in Shakespeare everything is strung upon the plot, the play, and loses when separated from it, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... have met with such a booty as might have given them the overthrow; but no remorse hereof, or anything else doth bridle their fierce and tyrannous dealing, but the Christians must needs to the galleys, to serve in new offices; and they were no sooner in them, but their garments were pulled over their ears, and torn from their backs, and ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... (the certain signs of false mettle), others slowly and servilely creeping in his train, while the poet himself is all the time proceeding with an unaffected and equal majesty before them. However, of the two extremes one could sooner pardon frenzy than frigidity; no author is to be envied for such commendations, as he may gain by that character of style, which his friends must agree together to call simplicity, and the rest of the world will call dulness. There is a graceful and dignified ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... Adelbert no sooner outgrew his cradle than he was known to all and sundry as Al Lorrigan, so that no harm was done him in giving him such a name. He grew up lusty and arrogant, a good deal of a bully, six feet tall, a good rider—though, not so ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... attention was arrested by the sight of women sowing what seemed to be grain of some kind in the snow; but, on enquiring, he found that it was only black earth, which the inhabitants spread on the snow in spring, in order to make it disappear sooner. He was told that snow thus treated would melt a fortnight or three weeks before the ordinary time for its disappearance in the valley; but it will be seen that this does not contradict the theory ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... her; without doubt The flame that rages in my heart warms yours; To carry out these subtle plans of ours, We have become as gypsies near this doll, You as her page—I dotard to control— Pretended gallants changed to lovers now. So, brother, this being fact for us to know Sooner or later, 'gainst our best intent About her we should quarrel. Evident Is it our compact would be broken through. There is one only thing for us to do, And ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... heads out of window, they could see nothing there. But they heard the sound of unpacking, then the greeting of neighbours—it was evident, beyond a doubt, that their dreaded landlord had returned home much sooner than he ought. The heavy tread of the gouty gentleman now resounded in the passage—the crisis was at hand. Henry stood at the half-open door, listening. Clara sat within, regarding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... everywhere, sooner or later, drives out its brood, ejects its people and their ideas, like those exploding seed-pods which at a touch cast their seed abroad. The religious fanaticism of the shepherd tribes gives that touch; herein lies its historical importance. Mohammedism, fierce and militant, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly. A veteran mariner is never deceived by the treacherous breezes which sometimes waft him pleasantly toward the latitude of the Cape. No sooner does he come within a certain distance of it—previously fixed in his own mind—than all hands are turned to setting the ship in storm-trim; and never mind how light the breeze, down come his t'-gallant-yards. He "bends" his ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the minister of Lexington, "no sooner did they come in sight of our company, but one of them, supposed to be an officer of rank, was heard to say to the troops, 'Damn them, we will have them!'—Upon this the troops shouted aloud, huzza'd, and rushed furiously towards ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... Soames. "Tell the kids you know about it. Point out that the Security people have three of the four belts, and they can wear them and pick up communications. Sooner or later they will and the kids will be caught. If Fran talks aloud they can pick up and identify his voice. If Zani writes, and looks at what she's written so he can read it through her eyes, her hand or her dress in what she sees could identify her. I'm telling ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... grows to a height varying from forty to eighty feet. It is bushy, therefore an elegant shade tree. The maple is indigenous to the forests of America, and wherever there has been opportunity for a second growth, this tree attains to a considerable size much sooner than might be imagined. In the course of ten or fifteen years the maple becomes of a size to produce sugar. The trees which have come up since the first clearing, produce sap that yields much more saccharine than ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... with the other, was dated from Port Lonis, in Hispaniola) I had no sooner read than the apothecary, shaking his head, began: "I have a very great regard for Mr. Bowling that's certain; and could be well content—but times are very hard. There's no such thing as money to be got; I believe 'tis all ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... "I serve you, Monsieur, sooner than I promised; and that is the way you ought to be served. I send you the answer of M. Smith,"—probably some German or Dutch SCHMIDT, spelt here in English, connected with the Sciences, say with water-carriage, the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his forehead; "this reminds me, young ladies, that you kept on rubbing your eyes last evening, and pretending to be half asleep. I wager, it was all to send me away the sooner, and to get to your dream as fast ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... No sooner had the King left the hall of the Convention than a violent tumult arose there. Some were for opening the discussion. Others, complaining of the delays which postponed the decision of this process, demanded the vote immediately, remarking ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... authority of the Cortes against the rebels. When the French invested Cadiz, Alava was commissioned by the Cortes to treat with the duc d'Angouleme, and the negotiations resulted in the restoration of Ferdinand, who pledged himself to a liberal policy. No sooner had he regained power, however, than he ceased to hold himself bound by his promises, and Alava found it necessary to retire first to Gibraltar and then to England. On the death of Ferdinand he ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... deacon," he began, at the same time taking the tongs, and picking up all the little brands, and disposing them in the middle of the fire,—"you see, two days arter the funeral, (for I didn't railly like to go any sooner,) I stepped up to hash over the matter with old Silence; for as to Sukey, she ha'n't no more to do with such things than our white kitten. Now, you see, 'Squire Jones, just afore he died, he took away an old rail fence of his'n that ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sooner reached the street, ready for sight-seeing, than the cabriolet drivers thronged about, importuning us to ride in the low open carriages ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... generally a sound stage-tactician and judicious caterer. His career, however, had not been so profitable that an additional hundred pounds should be a thing of indifference; in fact, the sum seemed to be just what was needed to enable him to forsake active duty on the stage,—for the patent was no sooner signed than the veteran retired upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... build must allow of it! He will have to do it sooner or later, for the savage must at least know how to present himself properly in ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... am not speaking of the wickedness of others. I come to appeal to you, Mr. Sladder, that for nothing that you do, our English race shall lose anything of its ancient strength, in its young men in their prime, or that they should grow infirm a day sooner than God intended, when He ...
— Plays of Near & Far • Lord Dunsany
... on the waves, the hard work necessary to put her in decent shape again induced Biddle to accede to the request of a number of British prisoners on board, who wished to be enrolled among the crew of the "Randolph." This proved to be an unfortunate move; for the Englishmen were no sooner enrolled on the ship's list than they began plotting mutiny, and the uprising reached such a stage that they assembled on the gun-deck, and gave three cheers. But the firm and determined stand of the captain and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of the door of "The Palatial" was a garden-bed filled with weeds and flowers mixed up together like the good and evil in the heart of a man, and to the right-hand side of this bed stood an old and backless wooden chair. No sooner had John limped outside the door of the cottage than he became sensible that, what between one thing and another—weariness, loss of blood from his wound, and intense mental emotion—if he did not sit down somewhere quickly, he should follow the example set by Jess and faint away. Accordingly ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... was the reply. "I've found my own country, at last, and it is not far from here, either. I would have come back to you sooner, to see how you are getting along, had not my family and friends welcomed my return so royally that a great celebration was held in my honor. So I couldn't very well leave Orkland again until the ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... to be trusted with more powder than they can use at once. From this store I dole them out their rounds; thus are all safe. But at this moment I have other use for this powder. Stay here; or no, help me. It will be finished the sooner." ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... clear, crisp morning. The air was full of ozone, and no sooner had Dolly settled herself into her seat, than she began to feel better. Her mind cleared and she could combat the problems that were troubling her. But she was in a dilemma. Should she go to Mr. Forbes and tell him where the jewel was,—or, should ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... ship of state, should its keel grate too closely on that adamantine wall. 'L'etat c'est moi,' said Louis XIV., and that 'slavery is the South' is as true an utterance. Our staple—our patriarchal institution—our prosperity—are one and indissoluble, and the sooner the issue comes the better ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... was not unmoved by this frank and grateful letter, and he knew perfectly well what reward he might claim from her gratitude. Had the letter come a few weeks sooner, it might have had a different answer. But, now, after the first pang of regret, his only problem was how to refuse gracefully her offered hospitality. He was sorry, he replied, not to be able to join her house party that summer, but during the greater part of ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... unable to contend with the House of Austria, then principally represented by the Spanish branch of that family; and Philip II. at one time thought of obtaining the crown of that country for a member of his own house. But no sooner had Henry IV. ascended the French throne, and established himself firmly thereon, than the rivalry of France and Austria became as clearly pronounced as it had been in the reign of Francis I.; and at the time of his death that most popular of the Bourbon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... No sooner had he reached the bottom than he turned on his light for an instant, which revealed Tom Ellison and a powerful native trying to get the better of each other, the latter having a knife in his hand, but Tom was ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... will never adjust itself To suit your whims to the letter, Some things must go wrong your whole life long, And the sooner you know it the better. It is folly to fight with the Infinite, And go under at last in the wrestle. The wiser man shapes into God's plan, As water shapes ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... milder form, a younger sister of Virtue's, not so severe as Virtue, nor so serious as Pity, smiled upon him; his fingers lost their compression; nor did Virtue appear to catch the money as it fell. It had no sooner reached the ground than the watchful cur (a trick he had been taught) snapped it up; and, contrary to the most approved method of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... certain, we can't stay here!" came from Snap. "Let us go straight downhill. That will bring us to water sooner or later." ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... recognition of a place of happiness and a place of punishment in the other life accompanies sooner or later a certain stage of ethical culture in all communities. In India it appears in the late Vedic and post-Vedic periods, together with the ethical doctrine of metempsychosis, and though, as is natural in such a stage of development, various ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... longest delay,' the Captain said; 'we sail sooner if we can. Report yourself to me to-morrow morning between eleven and noon. You will find me at the Noble Rose. You know ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the human mind was due, no doubt, the fact that no sooner had I abandoned the clinical side of my profession in favour of the legal, and taken up my abode in the chambers of my friend Thorndyke, the famous medico-legal expert, to act as his assistant or junior, than my former mode of life—that of a locum tenens, or minder of other men's practices—which ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman |
