"Unimproved" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and worldly things beloved, My anxious thoughts employed; And time unhallowed, unimproved, ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... forest-roads—roads that cleave grand avenues, traverse black barren heaths, ford shallow rivers, and climb over ferny knolls whence the sea is visible. The church is unrestored, the parsonage is unimproved, the long low house opposite is still the residence of Mr. Carnegie, the local doctor, and looks this splendid summer morning precisely as it looked in the splendid summer mornings long ago, when Bessie Fairfax was a little girl, and lived there, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... and his party travelled through about seven miles of rich alluvial land, and over fertile uplands. But, as they proceeded, the country became level, with a cold heavy soil, better adapted to grass than tillage. Much of this tract remained in an unimproved state. They had passed some hills which were covered with the grandest white oak-timber imaginable. Within view from the road there were thousands of these magnificent trees, each of which measured fourteen or fifteen feet in circumference: their straight stems ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... les hereticques, dautant que lors que ce scandale advynt, il estoit seul pres du roy, sans que personne luy peust resister ne l'empescher duser de la puyssance que sadicte Sainctete luy a donnee." Of course, Paul could not let pass unimproved so fair an opportunity for repeating the trite warning that subversion of kingdoms and other dire calamities follow in the train of "mutation of religion." The punishment of D'Andelot, however, to which he often returned in his conversation, the Pontiff evidently regarded as a ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... clear to reason, for there was a long seaboard with numerous interior navigable watercourses, and at the same time scanty and indifferent communications by land. Critical portions of the territory involved were yet an unimproved wilderness. Experience, the rude but efficient schoolmaster of that large portion of mankind which gains knowledge only by hard knocks, had confirmed through the preceding French wars the inferences of the thoughtful. Therefore, conscious of the great superiority of the British Navy, which, however, ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... a minute to our enclosure, which is but little above sea-level, and into which, till the pressure increases, we can fan or blow the water, so that it can be full three weeks after our longest day, or, since the present unimproved arrangement gives the indigenes but one day and night a year, I will add the 21st day of December. "'We shall be able to find use for much of the potential energy of the water in the reservoir when we allow it to escape in June, in melting some of the accumulated polar ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... effects of the rise of automotive travel, see Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, Historic, Progressive Fairfax County in Old Virginia, (Alexandria: Newell-Cole, 1928), pp. 20-21, containing a road map of the county's hard-surfaced roads and unimproved roads ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... soldiers, he was unable to proceed at once with the proposed establishment of San Buenaventura. The safe arrival of ten assistants now brought him assurance of a rapid extension of work in "the vineyard of the Lord." He was not the man to let time slip by him unimproved. Plans were immediately laid for carrying the cross still further into the wilderness, and six new missions—those of San Buenaventura, San Gabriel, San Louis Obispo, San Antonio, Santa Clara and San Francisco—were presently agreed upon. It was discovered later on, however, that these plans ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... amelioration, and peaceful development of ends that must come, did not satisfy the ambition of the conspirators. They saw their last opportunity for a successful rebellion, and they determined not to let it pass unimproved. The vast power of the slave interest; the passions easily to be excited by it; the encouraging delusions clustering around it; and the fearful apprehensions growing out of its darker aspects, all contributed to make it the very instrument ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... lay, half lost, in its wilderness of trees and flowers. Immediately in the foreground, a large tract of unimproved land brought the wild grasses and plants to their very feet. Beyond these acres—upon which there were no trees—the orange groves were massed in dark green blocks and squares; with, here and there, thin rows of palms; clumps of peppers; or tall, ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... the cost of his experiments. He had devoted himself to his inventions so entirely that he had lost all of his professional income. So it was that he was forced to face the prospect of staying in Boston and allowing this opportunity of opportunities to pass unimproved. His fiancee, Miss Hubbard, expected to attend the exposition, and had heard nothing of Bell's inability to go. He went with her to the station, and as the train was leaving she learned for the first time that he was not to accompany her. She burst into ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... from each other in manners, and in their forms of rude policy. All, however, were so little civilized, that, if the traditions concerning their mode of life, preserved among their descendants, deserve credit, they must be classed among the most unimproved savages of America. Strangers to every species of cultivation or regular industry, without any fixed residence, and unacquainted with those sentiments and obligations which form the first bonds of social union, they are said to have roamed naked about the forests ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... works on Verplanck's, in which Colonel Webster commanded, and be in readiness to attack them the instant Wayne should obtain possession of Stony Point. That this detachment might not permit the favorable moment to pass unimproved Wayne had been requested to direct the messenger who should convey the intelligence of his success to Washington to pass through M'Dougal's camp and give him advice of that event. He was also requested to turn the cannon of the fort against Verplanck's and the vessels ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... feet of earth up there on the edge of the wilderness." Tisdale's voice vibrated gently; an emotion like the surface stir of shaken depths crossed his face. "And a tract of unimproved desert down here in ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... most probably in their consequences involve other powers. I need not urge the importance of immediate remittances towards paying for the large quantity of stores I have engaged for, and depend this winter will not be suffered to slip away unimproved. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... upon it that has not selling value? If land value is already absorbed by taxation, what is it that goes to maintain landlordism? Perhaps you'll contend that landlordism doesn't exist. What value is it that a man pays for when he buys an unimproved lot in the heart of a city? What is it that the boomer booms and the land speculator gambles on when he adds acre to acre and lot to lot without any intention of productive use? What, if not the community value which he expects to attach to his land as a result of increase of population? ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... east of Dumbarton Oaks, separates it from Montrose Park. It is still, as it has always been, I am glad to say, completely unimproved, unspoiled, sweet and rambling and quiet, wending its way along the brook that empties into Rock Creek at the beginning of Oak Hill. I suppose there is hardly a soul of middle-age living in Georgetown who has ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... the Undercliff to St. Catherine's Hill, the western bulwark of the Elysium of suave airs, the scenery is perhaps even finer to Western hemisphere taste than that of the more noted northern region. It is, if not wilder, more solitary, unimproved by art, less pervaded with tourists and tourists' needs: one feels less suffocated, crowded, and very, very covetous of one or another of the lovely, lonely homes scattered here ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... was a firm Resolution to learn something from whatever I was obliged to see or hear. There is a way of Thinking if a Man can attain to it, by which he may strike somewhat out of any thing. I can at present observe those Starts of good Sense and Struggles of unimproved Reason in the Conversation of a Clown, with as much Satisfaction as the most shining Periods of the most finished Orator; and can make a shift to command my Attention at a Puppet-Show or an Opera, as well as at Hamlet or Othello. I always ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... youth learn many things which he cannot but find both useless and uninteresting. And yet unless we discover the secret of winning him to the love of study, the educational value of what he learns is lost; for what leaves him unmoved, leaves him unimproved. His information and accomplishments are comparatively unimportant. What he himself is, and what his real self gives us grounds for hoping he shall become, is the true concern. To be able to translate ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... fall away from Truth in times of persecution, shows that we never understood Truth. From out the bridal chamber of wisdom there will come the warn- 238:15 ing, "I know you not." Unimproved op- portunities will rebuke us when we attempt to claim the benefits of an experience we have not made our own, try 238:18 to reap the harvest we have not sown, and wish to enter unlawfully into the labors of others. Truth often remains unsought, until we seek this remedy for human woe be- ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... a miserable police guard of four or five, who occupy a wretched hut on the side of the road midway, and seem by their presence to render the scene around more dreary.[4] the road is a mere footpath unimproved and unadorned by any single work of art; and, except in this footpath, and the small police guard, there is absolutely no single sign in all this long march to indicate the dominion, or even the presence, of man; and yet it is between two contiguous [sic] capitals, one occupied by one of the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... objection is utterly fallacious. The government lands of our country were remote from the centers of capital and difficult to examine; the French national real estate was near these centers—even in them—and easy to examine. Our national real estate was unimproved and unproductive; theirs was improved and productive—its average productiveness in market in ordinary times being from four to ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... in rows. There were some vegetable gardens, and German women were weeding in them; then tracts of rather rocky land, wild and unimproved. After a while it began to grow more diversified and beautiful—country residences and well-kept grounds full of shrubbery at the front and vegetables in the rear, with barns and stables, betraying a rural aspect. The air ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the merit of moderation is, I have observed, most apt to be extolled by the losing party. The winner holds in more esteem the prudence which calls on him not to leave an opportunity unimproved." ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... travel becomes troublesome on all roads and impossible on many. On the unimproved highways deep, dangerous bogs form in every depression, containing either liquid mud where the horse is almost forced to swim, or soft tough clay, where the horse's feet are imprisoned and the animal in its desperate ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... not know what comforts are! Conveniences you never had; animal consolations, never! You have not enjoyed the great exceptional luxuries which once in a century, perhaps, bless a limited number of men. How sad, that you have allowed your opportunity to pass unimproved! ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... he hath not.' God does not ask how much we have given or done, if we have given or done what we could. But He does ask how much we have kept back, and takes strict account of the unsurrendered possessions, the unimproved opportunities, the unused powers. He gives much who gives all, though his all be little; he gives little who gives a part, though the part be much. The motive sanctifies the act, and the completeness of the consecration magnifies it. 'Great' and 'small' are not words for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... only figure out as 6 per cent., but, undoubtedly, a more careful and complete classification will lead to modifications in these figures, for at the present time no less than five and a-half million cows are returned as Criollo cattle, in other words, unimproved stock. ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... Flannelly proposes, you mean;—of course I'm only his messenger now. What he proposes is this. You see, the property is so unimproved, and bad—why, the house is tumbling down—it's enough to kill your father, now ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... mind, because of the simplicity and tenderness of your disposition," may have had its effect upon Pestalozzi. He now entered upon his third venture. Having induced a wealthy firm in Zurich to advance him money, he bought about one hundred acres of unimproved land in the canton of Aargau, where he proposed to raise madder as a means of profit. Once more his real purpose was philanthropic, as he intended to show the poor peasants improved methods of farming whereby they could obtain better ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... than the looking upward to the summit, and thinking how much our actual elevation has brought us on the way towards it. And, further, there is coupled with every consideration of Christian privileges, the thought of what it must be to leave such privileges unimproved. In this respect, how well does the language of the two lessons from Deuteronomy suit the lesson from the Epistle to the Corinthians. We heard the description of the beauty and richness of the land which God gave to his people,—there were their advantages and privileges,—we heard also, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... mechanical power, laid in store in the coal mines, in addition to all the unimproved wind and water power, should seem to any one insufficient to work out this world's manifest destiny, the doctrine of the essential unity or conservation of force is not exhausted of consolation. All the coal of which we have spoken is but the result of the action of sun-light in past ages, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... circumstances of the case compelled associate effort. Such a desert as that now blooming region known as Pasadena, Pomona, Riverside, and so on, could not be subdued by individual exertion. Consequently land and water companies were organized. They bought large tracts of unimproved land, built dams in the mountain canons, sunk wells, drew water from the rivers, made reservoirs, laid pipes, carried ditches and conduits across the country, and then sold the land with the inseparable water right in small parcels. Thus the region became subdivided among small holders, ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... period, from two years of age to ten, is allowed to pass unimproved, the task of learning them later is ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... always room in the hotels of the larger towns; and, until one can build for himself, a hotel offers a very pleasant substitute—at a slightly increased expense. Land, for building purposes, or in an unimproved state, can be leased for a sum that is almost nominal, except in a few highly favored localities. Purchasers of land are more than likely to find themselves immediately embroiled in a lawsuit over the title. If no ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... nearest to the door. For an instant the wife had left her station, to observe the progress of her husband's labor. The time had come, and the attorney was not the man to let the favorable moment pass unimproved. With a rapidity which seemed utterly incompatible with his rotund corporation, he flew to the door, and sprung the trap upon the hapless pair, in the midst of their vision of wealth ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... conduit is given in n. on l. 203. Hence the propriety of the word nudavit, which Lambin rightly interprets, nudos introduxit satyres, the poet hereby expressing the monstrous indecorum of this entertainment in its first unimproved state. Alluding also to this ancient character of the satire, he calls him asper, i.e. rude and petulant; and even adds, that his jests were intemperate, and without the least mixture of gravity. For thus, upon ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... ignoring the value of our improvements? Nothing hazy about THAT statement, I guess. It says in so many words that any improvements we make will not be considered when the land is appraised and that's the same thing, isn't it? The unimproved land is worth two-fifty an acre; only timber land is worth more and there's none too much ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... otherwise, in accordance with the means of the owner, of what I will term quilts. The Japanese pillow is a fearful and wonderful article. I can never imagine how it was evolved and why it has remained so long unimproved. It is made of wood and there is a receptacle for the head. The European who uses it finds that it effectually banishes sleep, while the ordinary Japanese is apparently unable to sleep without it. In most houses, however poor, ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... of time saved in a year by a farmer in your locality because of good roads; or lost because of unimproved roads. ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... often happens in the life of us all. An hour is given us when something may be done for our Lord or our brethren, which cannot possibly be done if that hour is permitted to pass away unimproved. Then we may teach an ignorant soul, or rouse a slothful one to action; we may alarm one who is lethargic, worldly, sensual, "without God or Christ in the world," so as to win him to both; or we may ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... either to the absurdity or crudity of these conceptions. Were these men—the wisest of their time—insane? Here again we may quote the last patient—"Insanity," he says, "is the elemental human mind left to itself, unimproved by other minds." The last is the important phrase. What minds were there to improve those of the alchemists? What critic was there to tell Joan of Arc that visions and voices were pathological? That was the regulation ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so, as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are. We have many of those useful prejudices in this country, which I should be very sorry to see removed. The good Protestant conviction, that the Pope is both Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon, is a more effectual preservative ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to you; I share your destiny, faithful to the end. The day that I have concluded upon for this task is SABBATH next, when the family with the citizens are generally at church. For Heaven's sake let not that day pass unimproved: trust not till tomorrow, it is the cheat of life —the future that never comes—the grave of many noble births —the cavern of ruined enterprise: which like the lightning's flash is born, and dies, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... experienced man of small means with children old enough to help in the work can make a good living, and save with the object of later on obtaining a farm of his own. In the north coast district the strides being made in dairying are phenomenal. There is a fair amount of first-class unimproved bush country available for settlement on the upper reaches of the Tweed and Richmond Rivers, and large estates have been subdivided by private owners, and offered for sale on very easy terms at from $19.20 to $28.80 per acre. Many farmers who find that ...
— Australia The Dairy Country • Australia Department of External Affairs
... variously estimated at from $60,000,000, to $100,000,000. No one but the fortunate possessor can tell the exact amount. The greater part of this is invested in real estate, much of which is very profitable. A large part, however, is unimproved, and brings in no immediate return. Mr. Astor, however, can afford to wait, and as there is no better judge of the prospective value of real estate in New York, he rarely makes a mistake in his purchases. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... in their infancy, and bid for immigration, was extensively laid out, but thinly populated, having less than 12,000 inhabitants. From river front to Twelfth Street, on the south, and to Chester on the west, it was but sparsely settled. The streets were unimproved, but the gradual rise from river front gave a natural drainage. Residences and gardens of the more prominent, on the outskirts, gave token of culture and refinement. The nom de plume "City of Roses" ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... is in cultivation, on account of its stony character, which makes cultivation difficult. Where unimproved it is covered with a heavy growth of chestnut, oak, and pine. The land is locally called "chestnut land." In a few small areas the larger stones have been removed and the land is cultivated, corn and wheat being the principal ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... General cast his keen eye around the apartment, and fixing it first on the divine, addressed Everard as follows: "A reverend man I see is with thee. Thou art not one of those, good Markham, who let the time unnoted and unimproved pass away. Casting aside the things of this world—pressing forward to those of the next—it is by thus using our time in this poor seat of terrestrial sin and care, that we may, as it were—But how is this?" he continued, suddenly changing ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... became in reality pretty heavy, were in his eyes a very unimportant consideration. Marston, on the other hand, was poor, and played with the eye of a lynx and the appetite of a shark. The ease and perfect good-humor with which Sir Wynston lost were not unimproved by his entertainer, who, as may readily be supposed, was not sorry to reap this golden harvest, provided without the slightest sacrifice, on his part, of pride or independence. If, indeed, he sometimes suspected that his guest ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... appetite or the vanity, or any foolish and hurtful lust, they are foolish and hurtful. Be thrifty of comfort. Never allow an opportunity for cheer, for pleasure, for intelligence, for benevolence, for kind of good, to go unimproved. Consider seriously whether the syrup of your preserves or juices of your own soul will do the most to serve your race. It may be that they are compatible,—that the concoction of the one shall provide the ascending ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... character; for more living brings can be supported on the same area the more they diverge in structure, habits, and constitution," (a principle which, by the way, is paralleled and illustrated by the diversification of human labor,) and also leads to much extinction of intermediate or unimproved forms. Now, though this divergence may "steadily tend to increase," yet this is evidently a slow process in Nature, and liable to much counteraction wherever man does not interpose, and so not likely to work much harm for the future. And if natural selection, with artificial to help it, will ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... design. This was a far different inquirer from Sakuma- Shozan, or the councillors of the Daimio of Choshu. This was no two-sworded gentleman, but the common stuff of the country, born in low traditions and unimproved by books; and yet that influence, that radiant persuasion that never failed Yoshida in any circumstance of his short life, enchanted, enthralled, and converted the common soldier, as it had done already with the elegant and learned. The man instantly burned up into a true enthusiasm; his mind ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too inviting to those who were privileged there to allow any proper opportunity for a visit to pass unimproved. Indeed, it became so attractive to strangers and lion-hunters, that some of those whose entree was quite legitimate and acceptable refrained, especially during the last two years, from adding to the heavy tax which casual visitors began to levy upon the quiet hours of the host. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... thought, is frequently no more than a reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... diversified in the forms of religion and government, in the laws, manners, customs, and languages, as well as in the features and complexions of men. I could not help remarking how important and extensive a field was yet unexplored, and how many solid advantages unimproved." ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... marine view of the Baltic with its busy traffic, and in the opposite direction the many islands that dot Lake Maelaren form a widespread picture of varied beauty. The bird's-eye view obtained of the environs is unique, since in the immediate vicinity lies the primeval forest, undisturbed and unimproved ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... thousand pounds. He entered the Army, and being quartered for a time at Letterkenny, shot and fished all about Donegal. He found the people here kindly and friendly, but in a deplorable state of ignorance and of destitution. Their holdings under sundry small proprietors were entirely unimproved, and as their families increased, these holdings were cut up by themselves into even smaller strips under the system known as "rundale,"—each son as he grew up taking off a slice of the paternal holding, putting up a hut with mud, and scratching the soil after his own rude ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... guidance into more improving fields. A two-fold evil follows upon the reading of every unworthy book; in the first place, it absorbs the time which should be bestowed upon a worthy one; and secondly, it leaves the mind and heart unimproved, instead of conducing to the benefit of both. As there are few books more elevating than a really good novel, so there are none more fruitful of evil ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... the narrative, the profoundness of the observations, and the terseness of the style, render this the most entertaining, as it is, perhaps, the most instructive of his works. His criticisms, indeed, often betray either the want of a natural perception for the higher beauties of poetry, or a taste unimproved by the diligent study of the most perfect models; yet they are always acute, lucid, and original. That his judgment is often warped by a political bias can scarcely be doubted; but there is no good reason to suspect that it is ever perverted ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... sinners resist the grace of God, and spend the precious time given to seek and find it in thoughtless folly? What can they do, on such a bed of distress, who have no God? Time misspent and gone—opportunities unimproved and gone—calls resisted never to be repeated—death hunting the soul through every avenue of life—a dreadful, unknown, unthought of eternity at hand—an awful Judge, and no Advocate secured to plead. A time was when a kind Saviour was expostulating with them: 'Why will ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... and General von Steinmetz. When, later in the day the King arrived, a guard for him was detailed from this Bavarian contingent; a stroke of policy no doubt, for the South Germans were so prejudiced against their brothers of the North that no opportunity to smooth them down was permitted to go unimproved. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... bushes. Here and there were also to be found some trees of fairly good size. It was in the east but a few miles removed from the great metropolitan district of New York and Philadelphia. There could still be found many square miles of unimproved land. It was surprising also to find excellent highways running throughout this semi-wilderness, between almost impenetrable walls of green, which though beautiful, produced a feeling of loneliness under their weird shadows. Some distance ahead the country appeared more rolling, ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... of similar constructions amongst the civil exploits of nearly every succeeding sovereign, together with the prodigious number formed, alike attests the unimproved condition of Ceylon, prior to the arrival of the Bengal invaders, and the indolence or ignorance of the original inhabitants, as contrasted with the energy and skill of their ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... general business is buying and selling all kinds of real property on commission, but we make a specialty of trading country and suburban property for city property and exchanging improved property for unimproved property. ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... carolling," thus earning the familiar sobriquet of "the jolly young waterman." Even so, his tenure of happiness was anything but secure. With the naval officer and the gang he was no favourite, and few opportunities of dashing his happiness were allowed to pass unimproved. In the person of John Golden, however, they caught a Tartar. To the dismay of the Admiralty and the officer responsible for pressing him, he proved to be one of my Lord Mayor's bargemen. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... but it struck him that the frequent recurrence of the accompanying noise would bring the skipper on deck and spoil the fun, so on second thoughts he desisted, and glanced eagerly about for something else, afraid that the golden opportunity would pass by unimproved. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... archipelago is highly variable, but there has been no selection, and there are no distinct races.[582] The common mignonette (Reseda odorata), from bearing inconspicuous flowers, valued solely for their fragrance, "remains in the same unimproved condition as when first introduced."[583] Our common forest-trees are very variable, as may be seen in every extensive nursery-ground; but as they are not valued like fruit-trees, and as they seed late in life, no selection has been applied to them; consequently, as Mr. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... hereditary allotments, and its only visible effect has been that the allotments accumulate in the hands of the richer and more enterprising peasants, and the poorer members of the Commune become landless, while the primitive system of agriculture remains unimproved. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... passed from a condition dominated by bad roads to a condition which is characterized by good roads, land values in that community advance. The cost of hauling farm produce to market is probably not so much increased by the grades as by the bad condition of the road surface. The trouble with unimproved earth roads is that they are muddy for many ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... and so repeated had been the reverses of the British arms, that an opportunity to retrieve lost prestige, even in a small degree, could not well be permitted to pass unimproved. The great flotilla of sixty vessels, with the fragments of the shattered army, which set sail with flags and pennants gayly flying in the breeze from Negril Bay, Jamaica, but a little over two months ago, ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... were not unobserved. Puckers, from her position behind the cups and saucers, enjoyed great reconnoitring opportunities, which she did not suffer to escape unimproved—the tea-room, she was aware, held an important place in the working machinery of society, as a sort of neutral territory, between the cold civilities of the ball-room and the warmer interests fostered by juxtaposition in the boudoir, not to mention a wicked little alcove ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... as I have already stated, separated from each other by the valley of the Torrens, than which nothing can be prettier. Its grassy flats are shaded by beautiful and umbrageous trees, and the scenery is such as one could not have expected in an unimproved state. The valley of the Torrens is a portion of the Park lands which run round the city to the breadth of half a mile. Nothing could have been more judicious than the appropriation of this open space for the amusement and ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... others. A teacher of observation will soon perceive this, and act accordingly; if, however, the thing is overdone, which it may be, and which I have seen, then the effect is fatal. Hypocrisy will take the place of sincerity, and the heart will remain unaffected and unimproved. ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... their sable clouds; A sound in air presaged approaching rain, And beasts to cover scud across the plain. Warn'd by the signs, the wandering pair retreat, To seek for shelter at a neighbouring seat. 'Twas built with turrets, on a rising ground, And strong, and large, and unimproved around; Its owner's temper, timorous and severe, Unkind and griping, caused ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... complex relations of life. And it may be asked what advantage, as far as we can see, would it be to an infusorian animalcule—to an intestinal worm—or even to an earth-worm, to be highly organised. If it were no advantage, these forms would be left, by natural selection, unimproved or but little improved, and might remain for indefinite ages in their present lowly condition. And geology tells us that some of the lowest forms, as the infusoria and rhizopods, have remained for an enormous period in nearly ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... despatched in a few sentences. The exact date of his birth is not known, but he was baptized on 9th December 1770. His father was a good shepherd and a bad farmer—a combination of characteristics which Hogg himself inherited unimpaired and unimproved. If he had any early education at all, he forgot it so completely that he had, as a grown-up man, to teach himself writing if not reading a second time. He pursued his proper vocation for about thirty years, during the latter part of which time he became known as a ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... countenance and a want of enterprise in the enemy; we should not have been, the greatest part of the war, inferior to the enemy, indebted for our safety to their inactivity, enduring frequently the mortification of seeing inviting opportunities to ruin them pass unimproved for want of a force which the country was completely able to afford, and of seeing the country ravaged, our towns burnt, the inhabitants plundered, abused, murdered, with impunity from the ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... disinterested merchants, and devoted self-exiled heralds of the Cross, located on the very spot that twenty years ago was defiled by the presence of idolatry. What a subject for an eloquent Bible-meeting orator! Nor has such an opportunity for a display of missionary rhetoric been allowed to pass by unimproved!—But when these philanthropists send us such glowing accounts of one half of their labours, why does their modesty restrain them from publishing the other half of the good they have wrought?—Not until I visited Honolulu was I ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Bowery Theatre at about this time. The crowds which thronged there were so great that hundreds from the audience were frequently admitted upon the stage. In one of his scenes, Rice introduced a negro boot-blacking establishment. Gosling was too "wide awake" to let such an opportunity pass unimproved, and Rice was paid for singing an original black Gosling ditty, while a score of placards bearing the inscription, "Use Gosling's Blacking," were suspended at different points in this negro boot polishing ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... circumstance and condition of mortal being, of happiness and misery, of love and hate, of good and evil,—all mingling their different results in that graphic record; and I trembled as my own name met my view, with the long list of opportunities for good unimproved, together with the many sins, both of omission and commission, of which I had been guilty during the past year; but there was nothing left out,—the events in the life of every individual member of the human ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... of Brighton is still the Pavilion, which is indeed the town's symbol. On passing through its very numerous and fantastic rooms one is struck by their incredible smallness. Sidney Smith's jest (if it were his; I find Wilberforce, the Abolitionist, saying something similar) is still unimproved: "One would think that St. Paul's Cathedral had come to Brighton and pupped." Cobbett in his rough and homely way also said something to the point about the Prince's pleasure-house: "Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... improvement needed in any locality is dependent entirely on the demands of traffic. In sparsely settled areas, particularly those that are semi-arid or arid, the amount of traffic on local roads is likely to be small and the unimproved trails or natural roads adequate. But as an area develops either on account of agricultural progress or the establishment of industrial enterprises, the use of the public highways both for business and for pleasure increases and the old trails are gradually improved to meet, ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... our power to avail ourselves of the military knowledge disseminated throughout the several States by means of the many well-instructed officers and soldiers of the late Army, a resource which is daily diminishing by death and other causes. To suffer this peculiar advantage to pass away unimproved would be to neglect an opportunity which will never again occur, unless, unfortunately, we should again be involved in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... days and weeks were creeping by unimproved, she retained in subsequent years only a dreamy reminiscence of the period dating from the moment when she essayed to utter the last words of Queen Katherine, words which ran zigzag, hither and thither like an electric thread through the leaden cloud of her delirium, to the hour, when ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... loose and sprawled one man upon the saw-dust. Others rushed upon him and again he was in a tangle and a tug, but he tore himself from their hands, got a square blow at the proprietor of the house and knocked him senseless. For a moment he was free, and this moment was not left unimproved. From an upturned table he wrenched a leg, and swinging it above his head he cleared his way to a side door, and snatching it open, he sprung out into a small court, just as the police were entering at the front of the house. In the court a dim light was burning; at the end, but ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... travellers and scholars in the countries sacred for their connection with the history of true religion. With other things by Americans, Dr. Kitto gives a prominent place to Mr. MINER K. KELLOGG'S account of Mt. Sinai, which we reprint below; and we cannot let the opportunity pass unimproved, of expressing a hope that Mr. Kellogg will prepare for the press the voluminous notes which we know him to possess of his various and interesting travels in the ancient world, which he saw with the eye of an artist, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... brethren—youth is one of the precious opportunities of life—rich in blessing if you choose to make it so; but having in it the materials of undying remorse if you suffer it to pass unimproved. Your quiet Gethsemane is now. Do you know how you can imitate the apostles in their fatal sleep? You can suffer your young days to pass idly and uselessly away; you can live as if you had nothing to do but to enjoy yourselves: ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... sold insurance of all the commoner varieties on the side, had stalked O'Day to this point and was lying in wait for him as he came out of the courthouse into the Public Square, being anxious to describe to him some especially desirable bargains, in both improved and unimproved realty; also, Mr. Overall was prepared to book him for life, accident and health policies ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... manual training, musical technic, foreign tongues and their pronunciations, the manipulation of numbers and of geometrical elements, and many kinds of skill have now their golden hour; and if it passes unimproved, all these can never be acquired later without a heavy handicap of disadvantage and loss. These necessities may be hard for the health of body, sense, mind, as well as for morals; and pedagogic art consists in breaking the child into ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... had been opened that a circumstance took place which gave to the firm a reputation which for some few days was absolutely metropolitan. The affair was at first fortuitous, but advantage was very promptly taken of all that occurred; no chance was allowed to pass by unimproved; and there was, perhaps, as much genuine talent displayed in the matter as though the whole had been designed from the beginning. The transaction was the more important as it once more brought Mr. Robinson and Maryanne Brown together, and very ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... been in Dicksie's mind to bring up the subject of the disagreeable scene, hoping that Marion would suggest a way for making some kind of unembarrassing amends. But such opportunities had slipped away unimproved, and here was the new railroad superintendent, whom their bluff neighbor Sinclair never referred to other than as the college guy, being brought apparently as a prisoner to ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... published the second part of 'England's Improvement,'[20] in which he gave a summary account of its then limited growths and manufactures, pointing out that England and Ireland were the only northern kingdoms remaining unimproved; he re-urged the benefits and necessity of a voluntary register of real property; pointed out a method of improving the Royal Navy, lessening the growing power of France, and establishing home fisheries; proposed ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... nothing in the world for it but wrinkles, seemed felicitously legal and almost supernaturally qualifying for law-writing. BLADAMS was about forty years old, though appearing much older: with a slight cast in his left eye, a pimply pink countenance, and a circular piece of unimproved property on ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various |
