"Usefulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... They've got us down—are we going to let them keep us down? Look into the future! Look at poor old Professor Culberson. Look at half of the older members of the Faculty! They have ceased to grow; their usefulness is over; they are all gone to seed—because they hadn't the courage or the cash to develop anything ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... often that a poet descends to the discussion of mundane affairs. His sphere of usefulness, oftentimes usefulness to himself, only, lies among the roseate clouds of the morn, or the spiritual essences of the cerulean regions, but, like other human beings, he cannot live on the zephyr breeze, or on the moonbeams flitting o'er the rippling stream. Such ethereal food ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... his Staff Captain, Captain M. J. G. Colyer, visited the camp and made the acquaintance of this portion of his command. The Brigadier, who had been personally known to the C.O. for some years, expressed his pleasure at what he saw of the unit and of its promise for usefulness and efficiency. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... precious possessions in the world are happiness and love, and these; come from simple things, genuineness, and usefulness. ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... than a sufficient relief—a relief worthy of those who are suffering, and of the nation they belong to—would have cost. In the meantime the cold wings of winter already begin to overshadow the land; and every day lost involves the lives, or the future usefulness, of thousands of ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... court, where there is a young architect with the T-square of his calling sketching some point of it, and a gardener gently hacking off from the parent stems such palm-leaves as have survived their usefulness. Beyond is the famous fountained court, and a classic temple to the right, and other structures responsive to the impulses of the good Pope Julius III., who was never tired of adding to this pleasure palace of his. It was his favorite resort, with all his court, from ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... every motive, examining with relentless searchings into the depths of his heart. Perhaps, after all, his longings for preferment were merely legitimatehopes for 'an elevation into a sphere of higher usefulness'. But no. there was something more than that. 'I do feel pleasure,' he noted, 'in honour, precedence, elevation, the society of great people, and all this is ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... spiritual and scientific truths which set forth the most advanced knowledge of the deeper things of the Soul so simply that any reader of ordinary intelligence can grasp, comprehend and apply those laws whose values extend the usefulness of every Truth seeker who is seeking light upon the MYSTERIES OF ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... such a mixture can easily be observed if the mixture is stirred after it has stood for a short time. When both moisture and heat are applied to baking powder, however, the chemical action that takes place is more rapid, and this accounts for its usefulness in ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... against the marriage, Lush had a second-sight for its evil consequences. Grandcourt had been taking the pains to write letters and give orders himself instead of employing Lush, and appeared to be ignoring his usefulness, even choosing, against the habit of years, to breakfast alone in his dressing-room. But a tete-a-tete was not to be avoided in a house empty of guests; and Lush hastened to use an opportunity of saying—it was one day after dinner, for there ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... learning or letters; since one would wish to lift to some little distinction, and more genteel usefulness, those who have capacity, and whose parentage one respects, or whose services one would wish ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... be round or rectangular.[*] Round vertical shafts are largely applied to coal-mines, and some engineers have advocated their usefulness to the mining of the metals under discussion. Their great advantages lie in their structural strength, in the large amount of free space for ventilation, and in the fact that if walled with stone, brick, concrete, or steel, they can be made water-tight so as to prevent inflow from ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... in as far as they furnish matter for reflection: while the desire to reflect and the ability to reflect must come, as I believe, from above. The honest craving after light and power, after knowledge, wisdom, active usefulness, must come—and may it come to you—by the inspiration ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... love feast at Abraham Huffman's in Page County, and stay all night at Nathan Spitler's. These two brethren give promise of great usefulness in ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... I set about preparing for the examination which precedes admission to the Military Academy, studying zealously under the direction of Mr. William Clark; my old teachers, McNanly and Thorn, having disappeared from Somerset and sought new fields of usefulness. The intervening months passed rapidly away, and I fear that I did not make much progress, yet I thought I should be able to pass the preliminary examination. That which was to follow worried me more and gave me many sleepless nights; but these would have been less in number, I fully ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... the most grotesque figure approaching camp. It was Herman, the fat cook, on Hunks, a gaunt, ugly old horse, whose days of usefulness under the saddle were past and who had degenerated into a workhorse. The disgrace of it seemed to be driving him into a decline, but he stumbled along bravely under his heavy load. A string of a dozen sage chickens swung on one side, ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... the Jewish youth knowledge of the old ideals and lessons of the Jewish past. During these dreadful days, the Jewish students of almost every country except America have been called from study, and preparation for a life of usefulness, into pitiless war and useless destruction. The oppressed in Russia, the student in Germany, and the free Englishman, all have answered the call to arms of the country in which they live, and each ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... Yet the trusts thrive marvelously, for the prices are absurdly cheap,—a prayer for a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honourable citizenship. Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. Why do men and women like to advertise themselves so much? Is it not but an instinct derived from the days ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... loss of productiveness in the earth that would yield him greater profit without them. Moreover, seeds of this so-called weed not only darken his wheat when they are threshed out together, but are positively injurious if swallowed in any quantity. Emerson said every plant is called a weed until its usefulness is discovered. Linnaeus called this flower Agrostemma the crown-of-the-field. Agriculturalists never realize that beauty is in itself a sufficient plea for respected existence. Not a few of the cockle's relatives ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Sir and Madam: In the untimely loss of your noble son, our affliction here is scarcely less than your own. So much of promised usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes for one's self and friends, have rarely been so suddenly dashed as in his fall. In size, in years, and in youthful appearance a boy only, his power to command men was ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... better end this meeting. If the boys are associated with us, and especially with you, Tom, it will mean an end to their usefulness." ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... is it, per se, to be condemned whether the people have a greater or less share in the government; for at certain times and with the guarantee of certain laws, such participation may appertain, not only to the usefulness, but even to the duty of the citizens. Moreover, there is no just cause that any one should condemn the Church as being too restricted in gentleness, or inimical to that liberty which is natural and legitimate. In truth the Church judges it not lawful that the various kinds of Divine ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... pages, had he received only a common education, might have been a man of high respectability and usefulness; and had his education been suited to his genius, he might have been an ornament and an honor to human nature. It may perhaps, not be unpleasing to see the efforts of a great mind wholly uncultivated, enfeebled and depressed by slavery, and struggling under every ...
— A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of • Venture Smith
... because he is of value to others. He wins no promotions by means of armor or conquests of power but by faithfulness to those whom he served. His is a conquest made by business sagacity. He is a hero of usefulness. (3) The use of his position to advance the interests of others is altogether out of line with the views of western students of society. We would hardly think it right for one to so earnestly promote the interests of a heathen sovereign as Joseph ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... throne elevated on a high platform. Over this throne is spread a canopy of white muslin, decorated with white and fragrant flowers, and through this canopy are gently showered the typical waters of consecration, in which have been previously infused certain leaves and shrubs emblematic of purity, usefulness, and sweetness. While the princess is thus delicately sprinkled with compliments, the priests enumerate, with nice discrimination, the various graces of mind and person which henceforth she must study to acquire; and pray that she may prove a blessing to ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... reconcile those less gifted by nature and fortune to their mediocrity; to know that those singular advantages by no means constitute happiness, usefulness, moral dignity, or even public respect. Selwyn, as the French Abbe said, "had nothing to do, and he did it." His possession of fortune enabled him to be a lounger through life, and he lounged accordingly. The conversations of the clubs supplied ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... is fitting I should mention that shortly after entering on my second year an event occurred of transcendent importance to me, which has contributed to my personal comfort and missionary usefulness as nothing else could have done—my marriage with the object of my choice, who has been, through God's great goodness, spared to me ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... man who met and overcame enormous difficulties. He knew poverty and calumny, both brutal things. He had a thorn in the flesh,—for so he himself characterized that impediment in his speech which he tried more or less unsuccessfully all his life to cure. He found his scientific usefulness impaired by religious and political antagonisms. He tasted the bitterness of mob violence; his house was sacked, his philosophical instruments destroyed, his manuscripts and books scattered along the highway. But ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... begin with ordinary commodities and ask ourselves, in the light of experience and common sense, upon what factors their price seems mainly to depend? Two factors spring to mind at once; their cost of production and their usefulness. As regards the former, the case seems clear enough. We may indeed sometimes grumble that the price of this or that commodity is unconscionably high in comparison with its cost; but this only goes to show that we conceive a relation between ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... internal arrangements scooped out, and his mutilated remains hung over a pole to simmer in a hot July sun. It is a pity that he cannot enjoy the melancholy satisfaction of seeing the skill and rapidity with which his body is prepared for a new and enlarged sphere of usefulness! He is no longer a fish. In this second stage of passive unconscious existence he assumes a new name, and is ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... could expect from Wolf Hartschwert was certainly far less deep and varied; yet to him who, as a knight, belonged to her train, she granted many favours which she denied the famous Gombert. Besides, Wolf's musical knowledge was as remarkable as his usefulness as a secretary. Lastly, his equable disposition, his unerring sense of propriety, and his well-proved fidelity had gained the full ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... were twofold: he was to move south by the valley, no matter where Early might be, or what he might be doing, in full confidence that Early would surely be found in his front; and he was to devastate the valley so far as to destroy its future usefulness as a granary and a storehouse of the Confederate ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... more. It will not guarantee success, or happiness, or contentment, or riches. Everything depends upon what development is produced by it and what use is made of it. It does not mean morality or usefulness. It may make a man more capable of doing harm in the world, for an educated scoundrel is clearly more dangerous than an ignorant one. Properly employed, however, and combined with high character, with a due regard for the rights of others, ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... His usefulness, however, is of a high order. With the sole exception of Dean Inge, no front bench Churchman has displayed a more admirable courage in confronting democracy and challenging its Materialistic politics. Moreover, although ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... the chill air of night and my Mosaic clothes. I wandered away to where the dog stopped behind a livery stable, and there, lying in a shuddering heap on the frosty ground, lay the still, white features of a soup bone that had outlived its usefulness. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... improvements. The intellects of the mass should first be acted on, and when the public mind is sufficiently improved to benefit by innovations, the public sentiment might be trusted to decide the questions of locality and usefulness. The French system looks to a concentration of everything in Paris. The political organization of the country favours such a scheme, and in a project of this sort, the interests of all the northern and western departments ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... obliteration of the old numen Neptunus by the Greek god who took his name we know nothing for good or ill; we are ignorant of the real meaning of the old numen, and cannot tell whether the loss of him was compensated by the usefulness of his name in Roman literature to represent the Greek ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... all ages up to twenty-four, and of every race:—"Europeans, native Portuguese, Armenians, Mugs, Chinese, Hindoos, Mussulmans, natives of Sumatra, Mozambik, and Abyssinia." This official reporter states that thus more than a thousand youths had been rescued from vice and ignorance and advanced in usefulness to society, in a degree of opulence and respectability. The origin of this noble charity is thus told to Dr. Ryland by Carey himself in a letter which unconsciously reveals his own busy life, records the missionary influence of the higher ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Lord, and one day aid in the advancement of His truth. Every advantage for moral or intellectual culture which their life of toil permitted them to enjoy, was eagerly improved by these parents. Their efforts were earnest and persevering to prepare their children for a life of piety and usefulness. With their firmness and strength of character they sometimes exercised too great severity; but the Reformer himself, though conscious that in some respects they had erred, found in their discipline more to ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... knowledge of the fact must be of the greatest benefit to the breeder in two ways, positively and negatively. I have known very great disappointment and loss result from allowing an inferior male to serve a first rate female—the usefulness of such female being thereby forever destroyed. As for the positive benefits arising from the inoculation—they are obvious to any unbiased mind. The black polled and Aberdeenshire cattle common to this country (Scotland) may be, and often are, improved by the following plan: Select ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... do anger and hatred hamper one's greatest usefulness? Do you believe in the modern theories regarding the effect of jealousy and hatred upon ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... celebration is not merely to glorify the past and least of all is it to laud the present. What we hope from it is that it will establish a milestone, not only to mark the progress thus far made but to point the way to a path of greater usefulness. The advances in medical science and practice and in the specialty of psychiatry during the past hundred years fill one with wonder and hope. It is worth while to review them merely to obtain this help. The outlook ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... I think your sympathetic nature causes you to understand much which you have not experienced, and knowing as you do the great pride I feel in my son's career, and the ambition I have for him to rise to the very highest pinnacle of success and usefulness, I am sure you will comprehend my anxiety when I see him exhibiting an undue interest in a girl who is in every way his inferior, and wholly unsuited to fill the position his wife ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... car, and the mediaeval one of old women, arms akimbo, in the nooks and recesses, selling big black cherries and bursting figs. Even the old women though, as momma complained, wore postilion basques and bell skirts, certainly in an advanced stage of usefulness, but of unmistakable genesis—just what had been popular in Chicago ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the end was near, since the usefulness of the car in furthering his escape was over. At the speed he was going it would be but a short time before the superheated pistons expanding in their cylinders would tear the motor to pieces. Barney felt that he would be lucky ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the Doctor was on his way to the dead-house and I held a shroud on my lap. But in a hospital one learns that cheerfulness is one's salvation; for, in an atmosphere of suffering and death, heaviness of heart would soon paralyze usefulness of hand, if the blessed gift of smiles had been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... in three weeks more there were similar grids over the colony houses and a vast roofed cooling-shed for pre-chilling of air to be used by the refrigeration systems themselves. The fuel-store—stored power—was thereupon stretched to three times its former calculated usefulness. The situation was no longer a simple ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... all of you no doubt would have been. The war—and many other things—had made me profoundly tired of life—something of course that I do not expect you to understand. And now that the war was over and my usefulness at an end, I had nothing to look forward to but the alleviation of poverty by means of my wealth when it was restored, and this could be done by trustees. Life had seemed to me to consist mainly of repetitions. I had run the gamut. But I began to be interested, at first by the fact that science ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... cheerfully maintain the old traditions [as, the three high festivals, the observance of Sunday, and the like] made in the Church for the sake of usefulness and tranquillity, and we interpret them in a more moderate way, to the exclusion of the opinion which holds that they justify. And our enemies falsely accuse us of abolishing good ordinances and churchdiscipline. For we can truly declare that the public form of the churches is more becoming ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... the jerky gait instinctively and swayed her body into its uneven swing. But her heart was all at once a-throb in a wild panic. Was this what a boy must expect? This challenging brutal downrightness, which made one seem to have become a dog that must prove his usefulness or be kicked aside? Her spirit felt as bruised as a fledgeling fallen upon stony ground. She shivered as the old beech stock loomed up ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... received more support both from the clergy and laity. It is so easy for the clergy to give this support by encouraging the Catholics in general, but especially the members of so many excellent Catholic associations, to subscribe to such periodicals. One word from the priest on the usefulness of having a good Catholic paper and magazine in the family, will induce a hundred times more Catholics to become subscribers, than the longest appeal of a newspaper editor. The stronger the Catholic press becomes, the more the attention of the ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... son, scorning his own safety, plunged into the boiling surf on one of those nights of terror so common to that coast, rescued a half-dead sailor, carried him to his father's house, and brought him back to a life of usefulness that gave the world a record of imperishable value. For the half-drowned sailor was Heinrich Schliemann, the famous explorer of the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... will be determined by the decision, discrimination, and purpose with which the book is read. Very small causes are sometimes followed by the greatest results. Less than a book often settles a person's destiny. A picture created that life of purity and usefulness which we find in Dr. Guthrie, the renowned English champion of the Ragged School enterprise. His case is so interesting, that we close this chapter by letting him ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... had only the crudest sorts of farming tools. Near the coast, sea shells were the most efficient implements they possessed. The fresh-water clam-shells came next in usefulness. Where these natural scrapers were not available, pointed sticks, and pieces of flat rock served the purpose. One writer describing the Illinois ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... the king to the synod, "that there shall be no more such assemblies but when he considers it expedient." Fifteen years had rolled by since the synod of Charenton in 1645. "We are only too firmly persuaded of the usefulness of our synods, and how entirely necessary they are for our churches, after having been so long with out them," sorrowfully exclaimed the moderator, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... drawn together by a mutual commercial attraction from the earliest times, an attraction based on the respective natural productions of the two continents, and favored by the vast superiority of the East in the creation of articles of beauty and usefulness. ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... pity. A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set up on him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness. Gambling and other less mentionable vices carry their own penalties ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... not help meditating on the melancholy uncertainty of human life, when I contrasted the comforts, the pleasures, the pride of conscious usefulness and genius felt by this gentleman a short time since, with the agony which that trying and bitter hour brings to the stoutest and most callous heart—when it must quit this state of being for another, of which it knows so little, and over which fear and doubt ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... factory era our fathers and mothers made homespun clothes and wore them till they had passed their period of usefulness. The average consumption of wool at that time averaged not more than three pounds per capita. As wealth increased the home loom and spinning-wheel were slowly supplanted by the mill and factory. The different textile manufacturers at length ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... of the rectangle is exactly double the length of its shorter side, which characteristic is absolutely unique, and greatly increases its usefulness for plotting out designs; and this property of course holds good for all the rectangles formed by the original figure and for the other species of subdivision. But perhaps its most mysterious property (though not of any practical use) to those who had studied Geometry, and to whom this figure ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... already extended to an unexpected length, and must here close. It is a dark record; but the histories of all new countries contain somewhat similar passages, and their preservation in this form may not be altogether without usefulness.[49] ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... accompany them on a walk round the country roads, which inadvertently prolonged itself to ten miles, and I knew what it was to feel foot-weary. But another neighbor of ours, hardly less known to fame, though in a widely different line of usefulness, makes a very distinct picture in my mind; this was Ephraim Wales Bull, the inventor of the Concord grape. He was as eccentric as his name; but he was a genuine and substantive man, and my father took a great liking to him, which was reciprocated. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... "I know," he added, "there 27 will be no lack of youngsters to follow where I lead." After that they asked, "Were there any captains of light infantry willing to accompany the expedition?" Aristeas, a Chian, who on several occasions proved his usefulness to the army on ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... one officer in my suite, or amongst those who have a free access to me, upon whom I could, with the least justification to myself, fix the suspicion; and yet, my uneasiness may deprive me of the usefulness of the worthiest men. It is, I believe, in your excellency's power to do me, and the United States, a very important service, by detecting a wretch who may betray me, and capitally injure the very operations ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... stand up for this poor lady, whose usefulness in the world is apparently problematical. She seems to me like a picture which has fallen from its gilded frame and lies, face downward, on the dusty floor. The picture never was as needful as a window or a door, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... rotting away in self-indulgence. John's fiery words would have had no effect if they had not poured hot from a life that despised luxury and soft ease. If a man is once suspected of having his heart set on material good, his usefulness as a Christian teacher is weakened, if not destroyed. But even these are not all, for Jesus goes on to attest that John was a prophet, and something even more; namely, the forerunner of the Messiah. As, in a royal progress, the nearer the king's chariot the higher the rank, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Mrs. Dalziel and Milly for taking me, though I couldn't help seeing that it was not for my beaux yeux they had asked me to be their guest. I was a handle, or cat's-paw; but I preferred the part of usefulness to my hostesses to being carted about by them as an expensive luxury. Mrs. Dalziel really wanted me for Tony, who had never been denied anything short of the moon that he cried for. Milly wanted people to think that she wanted me for ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... man; "one of these days you will leave the mountains and go out into the big world to live a life of usefulness and ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... felt we could have too much of God's service and praise, and scarcely regarded the grave itself as a terminus for our usefulness; for in the case of a girl who had attended our Cottage Meetings, and who had died of consumption, we lads organised something very like one of ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... naughty world, And what to do with it I do not know, Save that somehow, when all the place is still, It shall explode and spurt and flame and burn Slowly away, not having thus achieved The lighting of a pipe or any act Of usefulness, but having spent itself In lonely grandeur as befits the last Of all the varied ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... He might have added that all these annoyances, which he was so carefully discounting, had sprung from Dick's thoughtlessness; but he was silent, sure of the young man's value when the field of his usefulness should be reached. ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... in the development of the aeroplane in this country and in Europe since 1903, and within the last two or three years the leading powers of the world have entered upon extensive tests and experiments to determine its availability and usefulness in land ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... seems strange to him that I did at all give instance of the usefulness of church government in the preservation of purity in the ordinances and in church-members. He saith, For an Independent to have given this instance had been something; but it seems strange to him that "I should have given an instance of the power and efficacy ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... this. The fire had burnt too far and too deep to be quenched. The suspicion and prejudice excited could not be destroyed. Mr. Good wept over the state of things. He felt that the tide was too strong for him to stem. He saw that his usefulness was at an end so far as this Church was concerned. He resolved to give in his resignation, and to live a year or two in retirement from the ministry until the storm had swept away ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... love when the god is propitious. To sum up, the enthusiasm of lovers is not a thing uninspired, and the god that guides and governs it is none other than the god whose festival we are now keeping, and to whom we are now sacrificing. Nevertheless, as we judge of a god mainly from his power and usefulness (as among human advantages we reckon and call these two the most divine, dominion and virtue), it is high time to consider, before we proceed any further, whether Love yields to any of the gods in power. Certainly, as Sophocles says, 'Wonderful is the power which the Cyprian Queen exerts ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... when the end of earthly life seemed near for O'mie, the priest took me by the arm, and we went down to the "Rockport" point together. The bushes were growing very rank about my old playground and trysting place. I saw Marjie daily, for she came and went about our house with quiet usefulness. But our hands and hearts were full of the day's sad burden, and we hardly spoke to each other. Marjie's nights were spent mostly with poor Mrs. Judson, whose grief was wearing deep grooves into the young ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... may." Then again she was serious, and the tears came once more into her eyes. "I pray God that it may. To be of use to you,—to work for you,—to do something for you that may have in it some sober, earnest purport of usefulness,—that is what I want above all things. I want to be with you at once that I may be of service to you. Would that you and I were alone together, that I might do everything for you. I sometimes think that a very poor man's wife ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... all this just to show, I suppose, that I am not industrious as you did me the honour of apprehending that I was going to be ... packing trunks perhaps ... or what else in the way of 'active usefulness.' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... ornaments and as tools. Certainly not less important, if comparisons can be made I am inclined to say more important, is their usefulness ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... meridian lines and parallels of latitude at every ten degrees, and the substitution of names for reference numbers, will add to the usefulness of the map. ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... composition on the large scale, or you can make a small group on a table. That you are using furniture and drapery or vases, flowers, and books, instead of men and women, does not affect the seriousness and usefulness of the problem; for the principles of composition and color do not have to do with the materials which you use to bring about the ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... with the manufacture of guncotton, and he developed a process, consisting essentially of reducing the nitrated cotton to fine pulp, which enabled it to be prepared with practically no danger and at the same time yielded the product in a form that increased its usefulness. This work to an important extent prepared the way for the "smokeless powders'' which came into general use towards the end of the 19th century; cordite, the particular form adopted by the British government in 1891, was invented jointly by ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... almost wholly physical. Gardiner fully appreciated the difference, and in his heart he felt a contempt and loathing toward Riles which he concealed only as a matter of policy. And he had worked out in his mind a little plan by which Riles, when his usefulness was ended, should be shuffled off without any share in the booty. At present he tolerated him because of necessity. There was work before them for ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... of November Miss Ada M. Sprague, assistant in the normal department of the Ballard School at Macon, Ga., breathed her last after a brief illness of two weeks. She leaves a widowed mother and twin sister. She has gone in the prime of her young womanhood and in the midst of her usefulness. But she has left behind the example of a consecrated ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... it was a great honour to be allowed to exemplify this wonderful accord, this exquisite mutual understanding, between the punitive departments of two nations superficially somewhat unrelated—that is, as regards customs and language. I fear Bill didn't appreciate the intrinsic usefulness of his destiny. I seem to remember that he left in a rather Gottverdummerish ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... newspaper. Our fathers did not denounce the telephone as an "American humbug," but they did describe it as a curious electric "toy" and ridiculed the notion that it could ever have any practical value. Even after Alexander Graham Bell and his associates had completely demonstrated its usefulness, the Western Union Telegraph Company refused to purchase all their patent rights for $100,000! Only forty years have passed since the telephone made such an inauspicious beginning. It remains now, as it was then, essentially an American achievement. Other nations have ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... is equipped with manifold weapons; but even in these they have more regard for usefulness than for beauty. Widespread is the short dagger which every mature man carries in the fold of his garment; but the use of it is not permitted—on the contrary, the powers that be seek to get possession of all such; ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... effort to sap it of its reserve forces. In fact, it had simply been marched and countermarched along dusty tracks at the whim of a superior officer. Yet under this mild usage the column had arrived back at a base with 25 per cent of its animals useless and an equal proportion whose days of usefulness were numbered. The sole reason for this was the fact that the animals had never been trained to long distances in a trying climate with 20 stone on their backs. The care of the brigadier or the watchfulness of the squadron officers availed nothing when the green remount was put to the twenty-mile ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... beautiful land, with every want anticipated, surrounded by devoted friends, and leading a life of active usefulness, it would seem as though no man could be unhappy. There was, however, at least one among its dwellers who was so, and he was their ruler, the chief of them all, whose word was their law, and whose slightest command they hastened to obey. They called him ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... women, who did not belong to that inner circle, and knew as little about them as a looker-on leaning from a window in a foreign town knows about the people who pass beneath him in the street. But there were times when she entirely recognised the usefulness in the scheme of creation of those motley crowds of well-dressed persons, even though they bore names she had never heard before. During her preparation for the bazaar, for instance, which she was getting up in the single-minded ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... Roman Catholics; others, of whom I was one, had an affection for the more formal, punctilious service of the Church of England; and even two or three nonconformist teachers realized that a too open devotion to the missionary cause would hopelessly endanger their usefulness as teachers. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... about two miles to the west; and on their way out, Mr. Buxton talked on about the country and its joys and its usefulness. ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... that Dunsford, with his gaiters, lying on the grass listening cheerfully to the lively talk of his two friends, or sitting among his bees repeating Virgil to himself, or going about among his parishioners, the ideal of prosaic content and usefulness, had still in him this store of old romance? In asking the question, all we mean is to remark an apparent inconsistency: we have no doubt at all of the philosophic truth of the representation. Probably it is only in the finer natures that such ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... draw your attention to the work of the church and show you how it was carrying out its great commission. First, to prepare for the highest usefulness, it quite early freed itself from the sectarian spirit. As the magnitude of its mission became more apparent the points of difference between the denominations grew constantly smaller, and, in time, all Christians found themselves united on the fundamental truths ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... Letellier, a strong Liberal, from the lieutenant-governorship of Quebec by the {70} Conservative ministry at Ottawa in 1879, gave rise to some uneasiness and criticism. The reason assigned was that his 'usefulness was gone,' since both houses of parliament had passed resolutions calling for his removal. He was accused of partisanship towards his ministers. The federal prime minister, Sir John Macdonald, assented reluctantly, ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... joint, as well as by laceration of muscles, tendons, and blood vessels. In the region of the ankle, wrist, and joints of the thumb, however, compound dislocation is sometimes met with uncomplicated by other lesions. The great risk is infection, which may result in serious impairment of the usefulness of the joint or even in its complete destruction, results towards which the concomitant injuries materially contribute. In many instances where infection has occurred, ankylosis is the best result that can ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... had been fairly exempt from trials of this nature, for her husband, if undistinguished by pronounced brutality or indifference, had at least the negative merit of being her intellectual inferior. Landscape gardeners, who are aware of the usefulness of a valley in emphasizing the height of a hill, can form an idea of the account to which an accomplished woman may turn such deficiencies; and it need scarcely be said that Mrs. Fetherel had made the most of her opportunities. It was agreeably ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... filled with a succession of visitors till four or five in the evening. During the whole time he presided at his tea-table.' In The Rambler, No. 145, Johnson takes the part of these inferior writers:—'a race of beings equally obscure and equally indigent, who, because their usefulness is less obvious to vulgar apprehensions, live unrewarded and die unpitied, and who have been long exposed to insult without a defender, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... mourning—one for Rob the Grinder, which was immensely too small, and one for himself, which was immensely too large. He also provided Rob with a species of hat, greatly to be admired for its symmetry and usefulness, as well as for a happy blending of the mariner with the coal-heaver; which is usually termed a sou'wester; and which was something of a novelty in connexion with the instrument business. In their several garments, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... wrong she had done him began to prey on his wife's mind. She could not rest under the thought that she had wrecked his usefulness. Ernest Imbrie had, with the idea of keeping his mind from rusting out in solitude, ordered certain papers and books sent to him at Fort Enterprise. His wife learned of this address through his medical college, and in the spring ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... a sad, sad end to what might have been a life of usefulness and honour. I have thought so often of the parable of the talents; only I fear this case is worse. His poor mother! I wonder if I could write to her! Yet ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... were long considered," says Labarte, "only as ornaments. Montfaucon was the first to recognize their usefulness as historical documents. To possess manuscripts of the Middle Ages with miniatures is in fact to possess a gallery of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... reflect that sympathy with the actual miseries of life was better than weeping over romances. She was rising above the deleterious influences of her early education, and beginning to feel the dignity of usefulness. She said to her husband, "I shall not be sorry, if we are always poor. It is so pleasant to help you, who have done so much for me! And Alfred, dear, I want to give some of my earnings to Aunt Debby. The poor old soul is trying to lay up money to pay ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... pluckiest little women I have ever known, even in a country of brave and self-reliant women, was carried into the hospital partially paralyzed with beri-beri. She was so close to the gate from which there is no returning that it took our nurses six months to wean her back to another spell of usefulness. ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... to dream that she is shot at while flying, denotes enemies will endeavor to restrain her advancement into higher spheres of usefulness ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... I have been induced to make an addition to this little work, in order to increase its usefulness, by giving the French mode of tanning, as practised by the famous Mr. Seguine. Of such importance did the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Paris consider this improvement, that they thought it worth while to appoint a committee ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... odourless, stainless, and yet strongly antiseptic. It is possible, I think, that chinosol[P] best fulfils the required conditions. It was first suggested by Surgeon-Commander Hamilton Boyden, R.N., of the Whale Island Gunnery School, England, who was led to choose it because of its known usefulness in ophthalmic work. It does not matter to the general public what drug is finally selected; all that matters is that it should be of proven value for the purposes required. Women can help forward this great work by deciding in their own mind: (1) That the medical prevention of ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... great admiration and high regard for Marconi, the pioneer inventor of wireless communication. I wish you all the happiness that Comes through usefulness. Good night." ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... cut off from riding and all active exercise, and was not able even to go out in bad weather. It was with me as with Captain Harville in Persuasion—"His lameness prevented him from taking much exercise; but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... expressive features, and thoughtful cast of countenance; always neat in appearance; of gentlemanly, Christian deportment; genial in manners,—so amiable, as to be almost without an enemy; of very industrious habits; fully impressed with the beauty, the grandeur, and the great usefulness, of the divine art, as a potent means, when properly employed, for elevating the mind, adding to innocent enjoyment, and as an aid to polite culture; and with a soul absorbed in music,—all this can be truly said of Frederick E. Lewis. Not much more can or need be said to mark him, as ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... mission, and do not dare to interpret me as derisive of their important mission. But my opinion is that the woman who can reinforce her husband in the work of life and rear her children for positions of usefulness is doing more for God and the race and her own happiness than if she spoke on every great platform and headed a hundred great enterprises. My mother never made a missionary speech in her life, and at a missionary meeting I doubt whether she could have got enough courage to vote ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... they do, sir; but gallant and useful men are not scarce anywhere. You and I are too old and too experienced, Admiral Bluewater, to put any faith in the notion that courage belongs to any particular part of the world, or usefulness either. I never fought a Frenchman yet that I thought a coward; and, in my judgment, there are brave men enough in England, to command all her ships, and to ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... seemed might prove to be a catastrophe to the work. She was asked to leave Hwochow, and was sent to another province. Some years passed, but nothing could change the determination which saw in this union a possible wider sphere of usefulness and understanding of the people she had come to love; moreover, the mysterious something which caused her to know that "one man loved the pilgrim soul" in her, could not be ignored. To her trusted friend Pastor Hsi, however, she did turn for advice, and while many fellow-workers ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... this about Son-in-Law Ferdie: He's a help! Not constant, you know; for there's times when it seems like his whole scheme of usefulness was in providin' something to hang a pair of shell-rimmed glasses on, and givin' Marjorie Ellins the right to change her name. But outside of that, and furnishin' a comic relief to the rest of the fam'ly, blamed if he don't come in real handy ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... kept warm and deep. All preachers and teachers and men who influence their fellows need to lay to heart this exhortation, especially in these days when calls to outward service are so multiplied. The neglect of it undermines all real usefulness, and is a worm gnawing at the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... find in these sheets a record of that mental and spiritual discipline by which it has pleased the Lord to prepare me for the very humble, yet not very narrow, sphere of literary usefulness in which it was his good purpose to bid me move; with whatever of outward things, passing events, and individual personal adventure, as it is called, may be needful to illustrate the progress. Of living contemporaries I shall ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... and it was in the present that Braden Thorpe lived, very far removed from the future that Mr. Thorpe appeared to be seeing from a point close by as he lay on his death-bed. He had completely destroyed the present usefulness of his grandson. He had put a blight upon him, and now he was sleeping peacefully where mockery could not reach him nor ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... hundredth part of society. No greater evidence is afforded of the wide extended and radical mistakes of civilized man than this fact: those arts which are essential to his very being are held in the greatest contempt; employments are lucrative in an inverse ratio to their usefulness (See Rousseau, "De l'Inegalite parmi les Hommes", note 7.): the jeweller, the toyman, the actor gains fame and wealth by the exercise of his useless and ridiculous art; whilst the cultivator of the earth, he without whom society must cease to subsist, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Exactness, and upon these they reason as to the changes of Weather with great Accuracy and Certainty. It would undoubtedly be a great Folly to pretend to question either the Truth of their Observations, or the Usefulness of them: but then we may have leave to consider how far, and to how great a Degree they are useful. The Thermometer measures exactly the Degrees of Heat, but the Air must be hot to such or such a Degree before it is discerned by this Instrument. The barometer indicates the Weight of the Air, ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... you in the country. You can have a pleasant home there, and live an easy, natural life, while here it will be years before you can expect to accomplish much, and you will spend your life in a nervous strain. Think well, young man, before choosing the great city as your sphere of usefulness." ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... investigation of the space-penetrating powers of telescopes was undertaken for the sole purpose of aiding him in measuring the dimensions of the stellar universe, and there was no temptation for him to pursue it beyond the limits of its immediate usefulness. But here, though the first hint leading to remarkable discoveries was a direct consequence of his astronomical work, the novelty and interest of the phenomena observed induced him to follow the investigation very far beyond the mere solution of the practical question ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... Mark, without, however, any bitterness in his tone. "I should have called it luck once, but I won't now. I will try, by God's mercy, poor helpless creature that I am, to find some means of usefulness, that so I may not be a mere cumberer of the earth, but may repay in any way that may offer itself some little portion of ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... destroyed the half-finished bridge. They had raced down the line, driving the frightened labourers before them, tearing up the ties and making huge fires of them on which they threw the new rails, heating and twisting these beyond any hope of future usefulness. ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... unaffected piety and devotion to the Church he could not fail to appreciate, partially reconciled his ambitious spirit to his station. Yet the exalted ideas of Herbert were not entirely shared by Arthur, whose thoughts were centred in a more stirring field of usefulness than it would in all probability be his to fill. Herbert combated these objections with so much eloquence, he pointed with such ardent zeal to the crown eternal that would be his, when divine love ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... niggehs, ain't so much as tetched the deepest root uv his trouble, much less cu'ud! Why, Doctor, Brother Garnet see him, himself!—a-tellin' that C'nelius Leggett!—and pulled him away! Po' Brother Garnet! Johanna, I wish, betwixt the Doctor an' you, you could make him look betteh. His load of usefulness is too great. I declare, Brother Coffin, he was that tiud this evenin' that evm here, where you'd expect him to seem fresh and happy in his new joy, he looked as if, if it wa'n't faw the wrong of the thing, he'd almost be willin' to call upon the rocks and the mountains ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... usefulness as implements of persuasion, being now employed exclusively as foot-gear. The lissom birch thrives ungarnered in the thicket, where grace and gentleness supply the whilom vigor of its sway. The unyielding ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... get control of us hamper our usefulness to God, they are an incessant anxiety and distress to us, they wound our self-respect and make us incomprehensible to many who would trust us, they discredit the faith we profess. If they break through and break through again it is natural and proper that men and women should cease ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... signified a re-creating—i.e.,[6] a time for the nerve-tissues to renew themselves in. The problem before us is how to secure for the human units in the Dawn—these giants of whom we are but the foetuses—the holidays necessary for their full capacity for usefulness to the State, without at the same time disorganising the whole ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... Chester, Esquire, and Marianne his wife; a gorgeous room in the literal acceptance of the term, for each separate article of furniture looked as if it had been chosen more from the fact of its intrinsic value than for its usefulness or beauty. ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the Benefit Societies have been slow to learn the essential importance of adequate rates of contribution, to enable them to fulfil their obligations and ensure their continued usefulness as well as solvency. The defect of most of them consists in their trying to do too much with too little means. The benefits paid out are too high for the rates of contribution paid in. Those who come first are served, but those who come late too often find an empty ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... in oral teaching of English that story-telling in school finds its second value; ethics is the first ground of its usefulness, English the second,—and after these, the others. It is, too, for the oral uses that the secondary forms of story-telling are so available. By secondary I mean those devices which I have tried to indicate, ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... swore 'ot an' let a 'andful of brushes fly at 'is study, an' Lydy Elling picked up 'er skirts careful an' chill, an' drifted out of the studio with 'er eyes calm and 'er chin 'igh. If there was one thing Lydy Elling 'ad no comprehension of, it was the usefulness of swearin'. So the Marriage was a sore thing between 'em. She is uncommon calm, but uncommon bitter, is Lydy Elling. She's never come anear the studio since that day she went out 'oldin' up of 'er skirts. W'en 'er friends goes over she excuses ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... hope to visit you, and suffer my present prepossessions to be confirmed by actual experience.' . . . WE have received and perused with gratification the last report of the 'New-York Asylum for Deaf Mutes.' The institution is in the most flourishing condition, and its usefulness greatly increased. We are sorry to perceive, by the following 'specimen of composition' of a pupil in the eighth class, that the 'Orphic Sayings' of Mr. A. BRONSON ALCOTT are taken as literary models by the deaf and dumb students. The ensuing is certainly much better, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... a foreign country should be in touch with the people among whom he is sojourning. If he put on unnecessary airs, there will be a coldness and lack of cordiality between him and the community; his sphere of usefulness will be curtailed, and his knowledge of the people and their country limited. Of course, in a European Capital, where every diplomat drives in a carriage, I should follow the example of my colleagues. But even in England, I frequently met high statesmen, such, for example, as Lord ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... elements were warring against him, and others were being more and more stirred up. His home life was looked into as well as his past, his least childish or private actions. It was a case of finding other opportunities for public usefulness, or falling into the innocuous peace which would result in ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... as much delicacy as he could, only stating in vague terms that he found his attempt to countenance her stay was a source of discord between himself and his parishioners, that was likely to obstruct his usefulness as a clergyman. He begged her to allow him to write to a clerical friend of his, who might possibly take her into his own family as governess; and, if not, would probably know of some other available position for a young woman in ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... something towards the benevolent purpose of M. d'Ernonville, which is to make men sensible of the exhaustless charms of nature, to lead them back to their simple and original tastes, to promote the variety and resources of a country life, and to unite its usefulness with its embellishment."[59] ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... machine, built up, really, by the men themselves, must fall apart! What a waste of human energy! Yet, I've come to the conclusion that the man who devotes himself to public service loses much of his usefulness if he allows himself to grow pessimistic about human nature. If there were not more good than bad in the world, we'd still be monkeys! I have ceased to search for some great single ideal for which I can fight. Whatever abilities I have ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... admirable remarks that have been made upon this subject since the time of Spinoza. But this may be remarked, that I regard it as one of the most important services of the Darwinian theory that it has deprived those considerations of usefulness which are still undeniable in the domain of life, of their mystical supremacy. In the case before us it is sufficient to refer to the Gelasimus of the mangrove swamps, which shares the same conditions ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... which is a strong picture of the changing of a western desert into a land of usefulness, by irrigation. The story has a pleasing romance, yet exciting at times, with adventures of more than one kind. Every reader of "The ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... butchering of oxen to furnish meat for workers in a rice-field roused the resentment of a Kami called Mitoshi. There does not appear to have been any religious or superstitious scruple connected with this abstention: the animals were spared simply because of their usefulness. Vegetables occupied a large space in the list of articles of food. There were the radish, the cabbage, the lotus, the melon, and the wild garlic, as well as as several kinds of seaweed. Salt was used for seasoning, the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... constant and eternal as the sky which stooped to meet it. For the same reason, perhaps, ivy was sacred to Attis; at all events, we read that his eunuch priests were tattooed with a pattern of ivy leaves. Another reason for the sanctity of the pine may have been its usefulness. The cones of the stone-pine contain edible nut-like seeds, which have been used as food since antiquity, and are still eaten, for example, by the poorer classes in Rome. Moreover, a wine was brewed from these seeds, and this may partly account for the orgiastic nature of the rites of Cybele, which ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... at an Anglo-Saxon philosophy, Pragmatism, the test of truth became simply usefulness. It is true that most Englishmen turned against it. Why? Not because this view seemed to them false, but because they thought it inadvisable, and therefore sinful, to blurt out the secret.—O.A.H. SCHMITZ, ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... rigging and fitting my masts and sails; for I finished them very complete, making a small stay, and a sail, or foresail, to it, to assist if we should turn to windward; and, what was more than all, I fixed a rudder to the stern of her to steer with. I was but a bungling shipwright, yet as I knew the usefulness and even necessity of such a thing, I applied myself with so much pains to do it, that at last I brought it to pass; though, considering the many dull contrivances I had for it that failed, I think it cost me almost as much labour as ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... worst days of my life, Mr. Middleton, which I dedicate to usefulness. How am I to make good the deficiency ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... did, almost as tenderly as if it were the progress of a living creature, until it reared its beautiful front, an honour to the town—not even they, nor even you who, within its walls, have tasted its usefulness, and put it to the proof, have greater reason, I am persuaded, to exult in its establishment, or to hope that it may thrive and prosper, than scores of thousands at a distance, who— whether consciously or unconsciously, matters not—have, ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... possessions and conditions to the rank of extremely desirable or even necessary elements of happiness, and forthwith we desire them, without duly considering our own individuality and what it is that must always constitute happiness for us, or what it is that fits us for present usefulness. Health, position, fame, a certain settlement in life, income, marriage; such things are eagerly sought by thousands, and they are sought without sufficient discrimination, or at any rate without a well-informed weighing of consequences. We refuse, too, to see that already ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... as if some unpleasant duty had forced her temporarily into purgatory. She shied round like a cat in a strange garret, as if all she wanted was to get out. She wouldn't dance; she wouldn't talk; she went home early,—to her studies, I suppose, and her plans for next day's unmitigated usefulness. She took it for granted we had nothing in us but dance, and so, as Artemus Ward says, 'If the American Eagle could solace itself in that way, we let it went!' She might have done some good to us,—we needed to be done to, I don't doubt,—but it's all over now. That light is under a bushel, ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... gentlemen," "the sport of kings;" and though we may quote the phrases to-day with kindling sarcasm, yet they open a very different vision from that of the older inroads by unknown hordes, frenzied with the passion and the purpose of the brute. The usefulness of the common people was recognized, and they were allowed to continue to live and cultivate the ground; while all the great dukes and even the lesser nobles, having secured as many castles as possible, intrenched themselves ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... to enjoy anything else. Such devotion to the memory of a dead husband has been thought grand by some, although for my part I can see nothing grand in any form of self- indulgence, whether it be the indulgence of sorrow or joy, which narrows our sphere of usefulness, and causes us to neglect the claims of those who love us upon our affection, and the claims of our fellow- creatures generally upon our consideration; but in your case it is simply——" Claudia paused for want ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... right," he admitted, "and a great game. I'm going to take it up myself, and I'm glad it's coming in, because it will add to the usefulness of a lot of us men who have to fall out of cricket. There's a great future for golf, I believe. But no golf for you yet. You won't run any more and you'll drop out of football, as only 'pros.' play much after marriage. But you must shoot as much as ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... exercising his own intelligence, he should settle what he is to do. By consulting with others he should either abandon or confirm such resolution. Aided by that intelligence which is sharpened by the scriptures, one can settle his courses of action. In this consists the usefulness of the scriptures. By practising the arts of conciliation, he should inspire confidence in the hearts of his enemies. He should display his own strength. By judging of different courses of action in his own mind he should, by exercising his own intelligence, arrive at conclusions. The king should ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... government they obey, and the framers of their own laws, by means of their representatives. This is a thought which you have taught me to cherish; our difference from Europe, far from diminishing, rather adds to our usefulness and consequence as men and subjects. Had our forefathers remained there, they would only have crowded it, and perhaps prolonged those convulsions which had shook it so long. Every industrious European who transports himself here, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... pro tem., and at the end of the year, Mr. James Leigh, who had been manager of the Birmingham branch of the Worcester Bank, took the helm. May the bank under his guidance have, fortitudine et prudentia, a long career of prosperity and usefulness before it! ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... history, but was avid of doctrines, and read everything pertaining thereto. When the conversation drifted into an eddy of friendly wrangling between Ludovic and Theodora over Christian Science, Anne understood that her usefulness was ended for the time being, and that ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... down to a life of usefulness beside his mother—who lived to a fabulous old age—and was never tired of telling, especially to his young friends, of his wonderful adventures in the Far West and how he had been twice bought—once with gold and ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne |
