"Worst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... happened to Clemence Graystone, that which, it seemed, in her forlorn situation, was the worst that fate could inflict upon her; her health failed entirely. She grew; sick, even "unto death." The long days of the late summer and the early autumn passed, and she lay, in her pale beauty, upon a couch of pain. The world, this busy, struggling, ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... or two; before her—vacancy. She had bared her soul to Markham, there in the Square, torn away the veil of her pride and let him know the truth. Why, God knew. She had been mad. She had believed the worst of Hermia and of him, and had offered herself to him that he might judge between them—her heart and Hermia's, her mind, her body and Hermia's. Was her own face no longer fair that he should have looked at her so curiously and turned ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... bamboo, and saw on pieces of meat the special tattoomarks of the thighs of her grandmother and grandfather. Aue! She was riri. She fell to the earth and wept, and then she was angry. She made up her mind to get even with her false tane, and to hurt him the worst way possible. She hurried to his spring by their home in Arue, and caught his pet eel, Faaraianuu, who was sunning himself on the surface. She slashed him with her knife of pearl shell, and baked him in an umu. She ate his tail at once ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... "The worst of it is," continued Maisie, "that she's having a bad influence at St. Chad's. The Hammond-Smiths and the Lawsons and the Palmers follow her lead implicitly, and she's completely spoiling Rhoda Cunliffe and Hope ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... cannot ignore it, for even the best horsewoman occasionally gets hurt by her horse falling with her. Accidents sometimes occur over the most trivial obstacles, and when least expected; and are not confined to jumping, for some of the worst falls have happened on the flat. I remember Captain King-King breaking three ribs and a collar-bone—a pretty good dose in one gulp—by his mount coming down with him on the flat when hunting in Leicestershire. The late Whyte Melville met his death by a similar ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... by violence. Lander was induced by false pretences to bring the baggage from Kano to Sockatoo, when forcible possession was taken of the muskets. Clapperton loudly exclaimed against these proceedings, declaring them to amount to the basest robbery, to a breach of all faith, and to be the worst actions, of which any man could be guilty. This was rather strong language to be used to a sovereign, especially to one, who could at any moment have cut off his head, and the prime ministers of the sultan dropped some unpleasant hints, as if ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... a very good world to live in— To lend, and to spend, and to give in; But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for one's own, 'Tis the very worst ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... the majority of those about him. Some few choice spirits tried to get up a lofty contempt of his quiet ways and simple earnestness,—but they failed,—it not being in human nature, even the most scampish, to entertain scorn for that which is innately true and noble. So, finally, the worst that befell him was ridicule,—which, even when he was aware of it, hurt him little. Often, indeed, he would receive their jests and artful civilities with implicit good faith; acknowledging apparent attentions with a gentle, kindly courtesy, indescribably mystifying ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... reasoning and a great deal of culture, still goes by favor, and though innumerable generations of horses have been led to water, not one horse has yet been made to drink. With the best, or the worst, will in the world, no publisher can force a book into acceptance. Advertising will not avail, and reviewing is notoriously futile. If the book does not strike the popular fancy, or deal with some universal interest, which ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... into his father's cow lot, fastened them in, and went at them one by one with a shingle. A child living next door to the Penningtons had brought the news of Piggy's disgrace to the neighborhood, and by supper-time Mrs. Pennington knew the worst. While the son and heir of the house was bringing in his wood and doing his chores about the barn, he felt something in the air about the kitchen which warned him ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... concerning most words used in discourses, equally argumentative and controversial, there is this more to be complained of, which is the worst sort of trifling, and which sets us yet further from the certainty of knowledge we hope to attain by them, or find in them; viz. that most writers are so far from instructing us in the nature and knowledge of ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... Jameson's lectures as something "I... for my sins experienced!" ("L.L." I. page 340.) Darwin especially signalises these lectures on Geology and Zoology, which he attended in his second year, as being worst of all "incredibly dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never so long as I lived to read a book on Geology, or in any way to study the science!" ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... that I think it may not be amiss to desire you to look carefully to the seals of my letters, as I shall to those of yours. If I find him base in this particular, I shall think him capable of any evil; and will fly him as my worst enemy. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... pioneers of the health force for a while, neighbor, and that was not my worst time either. The corps of sweepers is not so low as it is dirty, I can tell you! There are old actresses in it who could never learn to save their money, and ruined merchants from the exchange; we even had a professor of classics, who for ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... the world itself totters at the stroke. Shall we permit that blow to fall? Do we not owe it to civilized man to stand in the breach and stay the uplifted arm?... This trust we will discharge in the face of the worst possible peril. Though war be the aggregation of all evils, yet, should the madness of the hour appeal to the arbitration of the sword, we will not shrink even from the baptism of fire.... The position of the South is at this moment sublime. If she has grace given her to know her hour, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... one knows, are the worst foes of man. Fabre not only studied these implacable beings but loved them. There was something unnatural about it; something disloyal to the whole human race. It is probable that Fabre was not really human at all. He may have been found in some human cradle, but he was a changeling. You can ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... Finns it is considered the worst of ill-breeding for a younger person to address an elder as "you," or for strangers to speak to one another except ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... home, then could they scarse haue such sustenance of meats and drinkes as fell for seruants to haue: so that the Danes had all their commandements, eating and drinking of the best, where the sillie man that was the owner, could hardlie come to his fill of the worst. Besides this, the common people were so oppressed by the Danes, that for feare and dread they called [Sidenote: Hector Boet.] them in euerie such house where anie of them soiourned, Lord Dane. And if an Englishman and a Dane chanced to meet at anie bridge or streight passage, ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (7 of 8) - The Seventh Boke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... Morton, is acquainted with a young girl who believes herself to have been stolen in her early childhood, from a happy home and kind parents, by a vulgar and cruel woman, who hid her for years in a wretched den in the worst part of New York. But, my dear Miss Morton, you can tell the story better than I; will you ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... he'd gimme two hunderd dollars I'd destroy the evidence and let the old man go. He says he didn't have the money, and I says he had the organ money. He didn't say nothin' for a spell, and then he says, kind of low, and wonderin', 'Which 'u'd be the worst? Which 'u'd be the worst?' Then I says, 'Worst what?' And he says for his father to be ketched for a bootlegger or for him to be a thief.... I jest let him think about it, and didn't say nothin', because I knowed how he looked up to his ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... has failed to find the bacillus of horse sickness. Barely five per cent, of the horses attacked recover, and about ten per cent, of mules. These are then called salted, and are immune from horse sickness; they can after that be safely used in the worst localities, and are correspondingly more valuable. They are, however, liable periodically to light after-attacks, when it is safer to exempt them from work for a day, or for ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... have it; so have great debaters and great reformers,—that is, reformers who can destroy, but not necessarily reconstruct. So, too, in the bearing of the man there was a hardy self-confidence, much too simple and unaffected for his worst enemy to call it self-conceit. It was the bearing of one who knew how to maintain personal dignity without seeming to care about it. Never servile to the great, never arrogant to the little; so little over-refined that it was never vulgar,—a ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... During the twelve months that he had been a curate in a parish in one of the worst parts of London, he had seen much of the sick and the dying. He had seen poverty, wretchedness, and sin in their most dreadful aspects, and the peace and comfort of his mother's present condition were a great contrast to the riot and squalor of many a death room into which he had sought to carry ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... a sort of advance-agent for calamities. To know her was to know the worst. Fortunately for the gaiety of the age she lived in, no one took her very seriously. Still, it must have been fairly galling to have her turning up after every catastrophe with a conscious air of 'perhaps another time you'll believe what ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... certain that for every victim slain by the plague, hundreds of mankind exist and find a fair share of happiness in the world, by the aid of the spinning jenny. And the great fire, at its worst, could not have burned the supply of coal, the daily working of which, in the bowels of the earth, made possible by the steam pump, gives rise to an amount of wealth to which the millions lost in old London are ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... overshadowed all others. He urged his Ministers to put aside all thoughts of hatred and revenge. "He hoped there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect him to take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst of them. 'Frighten them out of the country, let down the bars, scare them off,' said he, throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentment if we expect harmony and union. There was too much desire ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... mankind, these dear antipodes; Thro' pride, not malice, they run counter still, And birthdays are their days of dressing ill, Arbuthnot is a fool, and F—— a sage, S—ly will fright you, E—— engage; By nature streams run backward, flame descends, Stones mount, and Sussex is the worst of friends; They take their rest by day, and wake by night, And blush, if you surprise them in the right; If they by chance blurt out, ere well aware, A swan is white, or Queensberry is fair. Nothing exceeds in ridicule, no doubt, A fool in fashion, but a fool that's out, His ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... other doctors came to consult with Dr. Wilson; and I could read in the grave faces around me that the worst was apprehended. But I saw scarcely anything of my father or mother, or even nurse, so that all tidings from the sick-room came through remote channels—servants who had taken something up to the room, ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... a little chill of disgust pass through me. Deceit of any kind specially repels me, and deceit towards some one trusting, confident, is the worst ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... without seeking to solve the only real problem, namely, how nature is actually constituted, this introduction of metaphysical powers raises all the others, artificially and without occasion. This side of M. Bergson's philosophy illustrates the worst and most familiar vices of metaphysics. It marvels at some appearance, not to investigate it, but to give it an unctuous name. Then it turns this name into a power, that by its operation creates the appearance. This is simply verbal mythology ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... to obtain every information on the subject from the most authentic sources. The following facts may be depended upon. The disorder attacks those only who drink the water of the river. It is indeed in its worst state confined almost entirely to the half-breed women and children who reside constantly at the fort and make use of river water drawn in the winter through a hole cut in the ice. The men, being ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... inexhaustible abundance. If not, you will have to disburse a sixpence every time a partner accepts your offer of a glass of claret-cup between the dances, and half a sovereign for your bottle of indifferent "fizz" at supper-time. This latter is about the very worst of conceivable arrangements: it is an improper and aggravating tax upon the man, who, as likely as not, has not bethought him of bringing the requisite pocketful of change; while the ladies—at any rate, all the best of them—naturally hate the idea of letting stranger partners pay ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... sullen all day almost, and little complaisant: the day also being unpleasing, though the Park full of coaches, but dusty and windy, and cold, and now and then a little dribbling rain; and, what made it worst, there were so many hackney-coaches as spoiled the sight of the gentlemen's; and so we had little pleasure. But here was W. Batelier and his sister in a borrowed coach by themselves, and I took them and we to the lodge; and at the door did give them a syllabub, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... must hang," she cried, "till the earth and the wild winds have done their worst, and never a one to scare the wild birds from the flesh of ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... friends and he has his bitter enemies, though the latter, when charged with the fact, are prone to say that no one is so much Ray's enemy as Ray himself,—an assertion which cannot be altogether denied. But as his own worst enemy Ray is thoroughly open and above-board; he has not a hidden fault; his sins are many and they are public property for all he cares; whereas the men who dislike Ray in the regiment are of the opposite stamp. Among ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... sea in his three pinnaces. Life in an open boat is far from pleasant, but men who passed their leisure cutting logwood at Campeachy, or hoeing tobacco in Jamaica, or toiling over gramma grass under a hot sun after cattle, were not disposed to make the worst of things. They would sit contentedly upon the oar bench, rowing with a long, slow stroke for hours together without showing signs of fatigue. Nearly all of them were men of more than ordinary strength, and all of them ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... the jousts Sir Palomides came with a black shield, and he was a knight big of his body and on a great horse. He overthrew many knights and put them to the worst, among them being many of the knights of the Round Table, as Sir Gawaine and his brother Sir Gaheris, Sir Agravaine, Sir Kay, Sir Sagramore le Desirous, Sir Owen, who had been the little page-boy who had saved King Arthur's life in his hall ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... charge, and set him a-running round and round them, turning them in at corners, from a sort of impatience to be employed as well as his baying neighbours at the fold. Whenever old Sirrah found himself hard set in commanding wild sheep on steep ground, where they are worst to manage, he never failed, without any hint to the purpose, to throw himself wide in below them, and lay their faces to the hill, by which means he got the command of them in a minute. I never could make Hector ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... the party stopped his cab at the nearest address. He took out his worst case; it was a natural instinct to get rid of that first. He and the cabman carried it upstairs, and rang the bell of the Pension. A sleepy porter answered it. They carried their burden in, and looked for a place to drop it. A bedroom door happened to ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... imagines he is worshipping a body. Some think God is light. But this is as bad as to regard him body. For light is an accident in a shining body, as is proved by the fact that the air receives the light of the sun, and later it receives the shadow and becomes dark. And yet these people are not the worst by any means, for there are others who do not trouble to concentrate their minds on God, and occupy their thoughts solely with the business and the pleasures of this world. These people we do not discuss at all. We are arguing against those who imagine they ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... doctor faced her, open-mouthed and silent, she went on, still dry-eyed, but with a quaver in her voice that was like a sob: "But, oh, the worst of my blame is for myself! I was a blind, selfish, self-centered egotist. I could have changed things if I had only tried harder. I am paying for it now. I am ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... above (A. 1) unbelief has the character of guilt, from its resisting faith rather than from the mere absence of faith, for the latter as was stated (A. 1) seems rather to bear the character of punishment. Hence, speaking absolutely, the unbelief of heretics is the worst. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Missourians. Sam Woodhull, erstwhile column captain of the great train, of late more properly to be called unattached, also was absent. It was supposed by their friends that these men might be out late, superintending the butchering, or that at worst they were benighted far out and would find their way to camp the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... came his kind, yet firm rebuke of sin; his description of those who were prepared to join his kingdom; his promise to receive the worst who would become like himself; his assurance that all who continued faithful to the end of this life should in the next be joined to his Father's family; and, above all, the representation of Jehovah as our Father, who would give us eternal ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... state of affairs moved the Jews to envy Hyrcanus; but they that were the worst disposed to him were the Pharisees, [28] who were one of the sects of the Jews, as we have informed you already. These have so great a power over the multitude, that when they say any thing against the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... propagandist rulers, and what rancour would remain between them? Intensive civilization, such as has been applied to these states—civilization which has swept one class to the twentieth century, while it leaves the others in its primitive simplicity—seems always to produce the worst results. Nations can only crawl to knowledge and to the possessions of riches, for politics to the simple are like "drinks" to the savage and equally deadly ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... should you think of an arrangement to be settled now, and to take place at the opening of the session of 1788? The worst is, it would be known, which would be unpleasant to me in a thousand ways. I never had a point to decide which puzzled me so much. That very circumstance will probably make me pass it, as if I take any step, I must do it within a day or two at furthest. ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... selfishness about remorse. Put what has been done at the worst. Let a man see his own evil word or deed in full light, and own it to be black as hell itself. He is still here. He cannot be isolated. There still remain for him cares and duties; and therefore hopes. Let him not ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... but, contrariwise, we deem a thing good because we desire it: consequently we deem evil that which we shrink from; everyone, therefore, according to his particular emotions, judges or estimates what is good, what is bad, what is better, what is worse, lastly, what is best, and what is worst. Thus a miser thinks that abundance of money is the best, and want of money the worst; an ambitious man desires nothing so much as glory, and fears nothing so much as shame. To an envious man nothing is more delightful than another's misfortune, and nothing more painful than another's ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... in carrying a city by storm, which takes place usually at an unexpected time, and often in the night, the maddened and victorious assaulter suddenly burst into the sacred scenes of domestic peace, and seclusion, and love—the very worst of men, filled with the worst of passions, stimulated by the resistance they have encountered, and licensed by their victory to give all these passions the fullest and most unrestricted gratification. To plunder, burn, destroy, and kill, are the lighter ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... said Mrs. Montgomery, when she had finished, and holding the little singer to her breast; "I have always found it so. God is faithful. I have seen abundant cause to thank Him for all the evils He has made me suffer heretofore, and I do not doubt it will be the same with this last and worst one. Let us glorify Him in the fires, my daughter; and if earthly joys be stripped from us, and if we be torn from each other, let us cling the closer to Him—He can and He will in that case make up to us more than ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... three people who more evidently needed baths," Charley laughed in turn. "I suppose Felicia is the worst of the ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... A constable was on duty at the gate and as I came up and paused he regarded me rather doubtfully until I told him that I had an appointment with Gatton. I stared up the drive towards the house. It was not, apparently, a very old building, presenting some of the worst features of the mid-Victorian period, and from whence it derived its name I could not conjecture unless from the fact that the greater part of the facade was overgrown with some ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... threw it on the ground. "Seven. That's all the shoes I'll make this morning, and there are seven of you at home. Your mother can't spare Molly, but you'll have to do something. It is Saturday, and you can go fishing, after dinner, if you'd like to. There's nothin' to ketch 'round here, either. Worst times ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... The worst was that all these people were jealous of each other, detested each other, and quarrelled across the table about the election, exchanging black looks and grasping the handles of their knives at the least contradiction. They spoke ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... arm less to assist in our defence. Don't cry any more, Lily. I'm afraid we haven't seen the worst of it yet." ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... led in such a matter, but I trust so to deal as she shall give me thanks. Once if he do offer service it is sure enough, for he is esteemed that way above all the men in this country for his word, if he give it. His worst enemies here procure me to win him, for sure, just matter for his life there is none. He would fain come into England, so far is he come already, and doth extol her Majesty for this work of hers to heaven, and confesseth, till now an angel could ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... their homes, in the New World. They came not with their own consent, to find an unmolested enjoyment of the blessings of this fruitful soil. The first dealings which they had with those calling themselves Christians, exhibited to them the worst features of corrupt and sordid hearts; and convinced them that no cruelty is too great, no villainy, and no robbery too abhorrent for even enlightened men to perform, when influenced by avarice, and lust. Neither did they come flying upon the wings of Liberty, ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... the sword. The new religion was contemptible in the eyes of warriors. The supremacy of Eadwine was shaken. The men of East Anglia slew their king, who had followed his over-lord's example by accepting Christianity. The worst blow came from Mercia. Hitherto it had been only a little state on the Welsh border. Its king, Penda, the stoutest warrior of his day, now gathered under him all the central states, and founded a new Mercia which stretched ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... "Ser Ciappelletto," the hero of the first story in Boccaccio's Decameron, forger, murderer, blasphemer, fornicator, drunkard and gambler, "he was probably the worst man who was ever born," to crown all, he so deceived the priest to whom he confessed ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... am telling you the worst; it really is a lovely old place. Only Harry declares he would not live there alone for anything; it is supposed to be haunted by a certain evil-minded Strickland, in a green velvet suit and a powdered ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... services of milkwomen of the silent species that ring the bell, could we hope to have female chimney-sweeps as well behaved? Here, at all events, is a new opening for female labour. When the milkman has done his worst, the watercress people come and mournfully ejaculate. Now it is time for the sleepless and nervous to get up and do their work. Now, too, the barrel-organ comes round. There are persons who, fortunately for ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... from the fortress, messengers had brought the evil tidings. The worst had come to pass. At the last moment the defenders of San Carlos had cheated them of their victory. Rojas had been assassinated, and his body thrown to ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... unconsciously, his incredulous eyes still on the inscription, as though fearful it might vanish. "That man was either my best friend, or my worst enemy; under heaven, I know not which. Why, it is like a miracle, the finding of this bag out here in the desert. It is the clue I have been searching after for nearly five years." He seemed to pull himself together with an effort, realizing her presence. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... the Family?—The witty writer who declares that "the democratization of the family is impossible, since the family is by nature an autocracy and ruled by the worst disposition in it," is not without endorsers. There are also those, more serious in intent, who claim that the family as an inherited institution is by virtue of its inmost quality inimical to the personal freedom of its members, and hence that the state, which is now standardizing child-care, must ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... his return to his person. The outrages perpetrated by the King's illegitimate cousin, the madcap Bothwell, were largely laid to James's door, as the doings of a spoiled favourite of the Court: and the unpunished murder of the popular Earl of Moray, the 'Bonnie Earl,' by Huntly—one of the worst crimes even of that lawless time, and of complicity in which the King himself was suspected—aggravated ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... the fold of the blanket in his hand he raised it up, and drew it on one side, faintly hoping that he might be wrong, but hoping against hope, for the next moment he had unveiled it where it lay, to see his worst fears confirmed—the beautiful limpid-looking object lay upon the flag at the end, broken in three pieces, one of which reflected the ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... now the worst news, unhappy lord," whispered Pentuer. "But remember that the enemies of Egypt must not notice grief ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind: the sword of William the Second, the grandson of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the Comnenian race; and the subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers as friends, since they detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies. The Latin historians [124] expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and cities to the obedience of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... least, their requirements. And worst of all, he's got it into his head that he hasn't ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... the reader would have to construct the story." Here our critic's clever ingenuity carries him a little too far; but there is some truth in his definition or description of the special manner which characterises such poems as Too Late, or The Worst of It. But not merely the manner of presentment, the substance, and also the style and versification, have undergone a change during the long-silent years which lie between Men and Women and Dramatis Personae. The first note of change, of the change which makes us speak of earlier and later ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... custom, became no sin. The superfluity of naughtiness,' says Bunyan, 'is at this day become no sin with many.' p. 509. 'There are a good many professors now in England that have nothing to distinguish them from the worst of men,' but their praying, reading, hearing of sermons, baptism, church fellowship, and breaking of bread. Separate them but from these, and every where else they are as black as others, even in their whole life and conversation.' p. 508. 'It is marvellous to me to see sin so high amidst ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... then, if you'll wait a minute," replied Roupall; "I defy the devil and all his works; and old Noll himself, the worst ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... "But the worst was when they made us stand up before all those people to be sentenced. I must say I felt shaky about the knees then, not because I was afraid of what was coming, but because it was the first time I had ever been pointed out before people, and made to feel ashamed. And having those ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... to say that the town of Senlis was pillaged. While the enemy sacked the houses they took pleasure in exciting the worst instincts of the populace by offering part of the booty to women ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... can be of no avail to you; and I sha' n't stay here any longer to be insulted, Mr. Wolfe, which, I am sure, talking of freemen, no freeman ought to submit to; but as the late Lady Waddilove once very wisely said to me, 'Brown, never have anything to do with those republicans: they are the worst tyrants of all.' Good morning, Mr. Wolfe; gentlemen, your servant; 'cheating and imposition,' indeed! and Mr. Brown banged the ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... March 29, 1917, p. 7. What about the soundness of the faith of a D.D. who can recommend Hastings's Bible Dictionary as a reliable work of reference? Rev. M.S. Waters recommends a book that is full of the worst heresies; but the president of the New York and New England Synod, Rev. W.M. Horn, when his attention is called to the matter, bluntly declares: 'I will do nothing in the case referred to.' On request of the District Synod of Ohio, the president of the General Council appoints ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... executed the wily requirements of his employer. So guardedly did he work, that no one could trace to him, who ever spoke as the friend of their curate, the prejudice which had slowly but surely penetrated the mind of every man against him, and interpreted his simplest action in the worst light. There were some rumours afloat of misdemeanours during his college life; it mattered not whether they were true or false, they were received and encouraged by the credulous. He was a Welshman too, full of evil qualities, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... delicately, Women do not often make an ado about this. They talk it over among themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, and smooth them out, and polish them up, and make the best of them, and simply and sedulously shut their eyes and make believe there isn't any worst, or reason it away,—a great deal more than I should think they would. But if you want to see the qualities that a woman, spontaneously loves, the expression, the tone, the bearing that thoroughly satisfies her self-respect, that not only secures her acquiescence, but arouses her enthusiasm ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... this difficulty,that Scott cared not to write a story of a single class. "From the peer to the ploughman," all society mingles in each of his novels. A fiction of middle-class life did not allure him, and he was not at the best, but at his worst, as Sydney Smith observed, in the light talk of society. He could admire Miss Austen, and read her novels again and again; but had he attempted to follow her, by way of variety, then inevitably wild as well as disciplined humour would have kept breaking in, and his fancy ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... prove. A suppositious example may serve in explanation; only a fact will serve as proof. The more inevitable its application, the more clinching its effect, the better its argumentative value. Notice how the two examples given below prove that the heirs of a literary man might be the very worst persons to own the copyrights of his writings since as owners they might suppress books which the world of readers should be able to secure easily. While these examples illustrate, do they not ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... you off your ship!' cried the captain: and then, turning to the crew, 'Good-bye, you fellows!' he said. 'You're gentlemen, anyway! The worst nigger among you would look better upon a quarter-deck ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... there lived near the Land's End of England, in the county of Cornwall, a farmer who had one only son called Jack. He was brisk and of ready, lively wit, so that nobody or nothing could worst him. ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... If any of them got rich, he would be the man. He was the worst grafter of the entire bunch. I could tell you some stories about old Pat McEachern, Spike. If half those yarns were true he must be a wealthy man by now. We shall hear of him running for mayor ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... The worst of it all was that neither his uncle nor his uncle's wife showed any affection for him, rather indifference, and this indifference prepared the boy to receive their few benefactions with ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... the anger and worry, this execrably handled army apparatus must have broken down altogether. But as it was, everybody made the best of the situation and thanked the Lord that each revolution of the wheels brought the troops nearer to the enemy. The worst of it was that the trains had to stop at the stations time and time again in order to allow the empty trains returning from ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... initiatory orders at once, not waiting even till the Marquis should be dead. "We should have our houses open as soon as theirs," said he. "There's a deal in that." So George Vavasor gave his orders. "If the worst comes to the worst," he said to himself, "I can always cut ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... about war and trouble which he feared would come upon England. He had been a good, kind old man, and his people grieved for him very much; but through his want of firmness he had prepared the way for some of the worst troubles that England ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... but, for all that, I am glad she is on board our craft; we have got more beam, and, if it comes to the worst, we can run. The lugger can't with her sharp stern. I'll ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... exist, and are well known as one of the worst classes of criminals, practising ordinary house-breaking and theft. The name Badhak is now less commonly used than those of Bagri and Baori or Bawaria, both of which were borne by the original Badhaks. The word Bagri is ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... was not forced to come out in the ship, and had almost been left, as it was. I went on deck in a troubled frame of mind, and determined to keep my eye on every one who approached me, for the voyage had the worst possible beginning. ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... consequences,' pursued His Highness, 'are more strongly verified than ever by your own withdrawing from the Queen's parties since her unreserved acknowledgment of her partiality (fatal partiality!) for those who will be her ruin; for they are her worst enemies.' ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the bramble—brought down to the water's edge. The river-follower must force his way through these obstacles, in most cases greatly to the detriment of his clothes and temper; or, should they prove impassable, he must undress and go into the water. Worst of all is the thought that he is a trespasser. The pheasants crow loudly lest he should forget it. Occasionally, too, in these private places he encounters men in velveteens with guns under their ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... go down the court. I was used to have nothing but fine pitchers and pails brought to me to fill, but now I have to look into dirty broken pitchers and old tubs. They have even begun to call the place Pump Court, as if I were no better than a common every-day pump! What is worst, there is an upstart just the other side of the way,—it lets out water to be sure, but it has nothing to say about it; it has no handle, and the water comes out by just turning a screw; altogether it is a very plebeian thing; it can know nothing of the pleasure ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... the Book reflects on the great difficulty of hitting the mean in all things, and of correctly estimating all the requisite circumstances, in each particular case. He gives as practical rules:—To avoid at all events the worst extreme; to keep farthest from our natural bent; to guard against the snare of pleasure. Slight mistakes on either side are little blamed, but grave and conspicuous cases incur severe censure. Yet how far the censure ought to go, is difficult to lay down beforehand ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... dragnet had descended to envelop the monster which was ready to split the Union or at least to embroil its relations with a friendly power, and had brought up—a few peaceful agriculturists! Nor was this the worst of the matter, contended these critics of the Administration, for the real source of the peril had been the President's own action in assigning the command at New Orleans to Wilkinson, a pensioner of Spain, a villain "from the bark to the very core." Yet so ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... off a huge chew of tobacco, while he digested MacRae's warning. Then he looked up with a smile that broadened to a grin. "You're all right," he said cheerfully. "I like your style. If I get the worst of the ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Sudden angry passions (especially when grown into habits) causing injury. (4) Injury caused by selfish and sensual passions. (5) Deliberate injury springing from calm selfishness. (6) Impiety towards the Deity, as known to be good. The worst conceivable disposition, a fixed, unprovoked original malice is hardly found among men. In the end of the chapter, he re-asserts the supremacy of the moral faculty, and of the principle of pure benevolence that it involves. ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... encounter all dangers. The worst of them all to her mind was the danger of not succeeding, and of so breaking faith with Alec. She had sixpence of her own in coppers in her box,—the only difficulty was to get into the house and out again without being seen. By employing the utmost care ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... more atheistic form. The second important work of Strauss, his System of Doctrine, was even more adapted than his first to sap the foundations of faith and social security. It was the embodiment of all the worst features of the Hegelian philosophy. It was frank and bold in all its statements. No man could mistake a single utterance. In it doctrines are traced to their genetic development, and held to be the luxuriant growth of the seeds of error. The truths of Christianity are surrounded by a halo ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... missionary, with me it should be otherwise. I became a Jesuit through distrust of myself. I knew, when she had been taken from me, that because of my despair, if I did not bind myself strongly to that which was highest, I should sink to that which was worst. And I knew that if I sank to that which was worst, she would be lost to me throughout all eternity. So, in order that God might give her to me again in a future world, I strove to bribe Him; I asked that I might be sent to this hardest ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... there is much grass growing up through the vines to be hand picked, this working is tedious and laborious enough, and tires to the utmost the patience and endurance of the laborer. In fact, this is the worst period in the cultivation of the peanut crop. The weather is hot, close, and enervating; the frequent stooping and picking makes it doubly laborious; and, on account of the size the vines have attained, the plow must necessarily leave a wider surface for the ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... seventeenth century. In "The Bride," it must be confessed, Rowlands falls below his own best work. Yet the poem is by no means wholly lacking in interest. If not his best work, "The Bride" is by no means his worst. Like most of his poems, it is written in an heroic stanza of six lines, and, as is not so common with him, is in dialogue form. The dialogue for the most part is well sustained and sprightly. The story ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... chateau and passed through the gate. It was that, it was she. But a fearful anguish nailed him to the spot, a fear to know the worst, a dread of the truth, and he did not stir, hiding as a hare, starting at ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... a mucker, Mr. Smart," he said, between his teeth. "I'm sorry my sister has fallen into your hands. The worst of it is, she seems satisfied with everything you do. Good Lord! What she can see in you is beyond my comprehension. Protection! Why you couldn't protect her from ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... wont to come in September of every year to Our Lady of Serrance. They inquired of him concerning his journey, and he told them that on account of the floods he had come over the mountains and by the worst roads he had ever known. On the way he had seen a very pitiful sight. He had met a gentleman named Simontault, who, wearied by his long waiting for the river to subside, and trusting to the goodness of his horse, had tried to force a passage, and had placed all his servants round about him ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... after all: if Roddy had really been watching for him at the Gare du Nord, with a mind to follow and wait for his prey to make some incriminating move, this chance-contrived change of vehicles and destination would throw the detective off the scent and gain the adventurer, at worst, several hours' leeway. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... The frozen sorrows of unsceptred days. Or in that later travelling he comes Upon a bleak oblivion, and tells Himself, again, again, forgotten tombs Are all now that love was, and blindly spells His royal state of old a glory cursed, Saying 'I have forgot', and that's the worst. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... Warwick's fears, relieved his suspense. He at least knew the worst, unless there should be something still more disturbing in Tryon's letter, which he now proceeded to open, and which ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... printed book itself of the Collected Writings of Mr. Whistler, whose publication has proved so comically impossible. The style of the preface and accessory comments is in the worst style of Western editorship; while the disastrous effect of Mr. Whistler's literature upon the one who has burned his fingers with ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... of the rampant pro-slavery men, and of partisans of the South, as is a Barlow. All the former associations of McClellan have been of the worst kind—Breckinridgians. But perhaps he will throw them off. He is young, and the elevation of his position, his standing before the civilized world, will inspire and purify him, I hope. Nay, I ardently wish he may go to the camp, to ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... and not only will our morals become as carious as our teeth, but toothache and the plagues that follow neglected morality will presently cause more agony than all the dentists and dramatists at their worst have caused ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... humanity, then, that you (addressing Republican Senators) wish to put an end to slavery, or is it to be urged by you as a mere topic and point of party controversy to sustain party power? Surely I give you credit for looking at it upon broader and more generous principles. Then, in the worst event, after you have encountered disunion, that greatest of all political calamities to the people of this country, and the disunionists come, the separating States come, and demand or take their portion of the Territories, they can take, and will be entitled ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... rage for fault-finding, and betake themselves to the pulpit as others are sent to Bedlam. Men of all denominations are here, and it is a deal of mischief they do,—the worst, indirectly, by making a sober man distrust the religious faculty they appeal to, and set his face against all mending of anything, no matter how badly it is broken. These Theudases, boasting themselves to be somebody, and leading ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... doings; what am I like to come to if he Turn honest now? This is the worst piece of Inconstancy He ever was guilty of; to change ones Humour, or so, Sometimes, is nothing: but to change Nature, To turn good on a sudden, and never give a Man Civil warning, is a Defeat not be endur'd; I'll see the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... girl. He was greatly concerned, feeling certain that she had fled to the forest for protection from the rebels. He expected her to return when the men had left, but as the hours moved slowly by and she did not appear, he feared the worst. He imagined that she had become bewildered by the storm, had lost her way, and perished. He groaned aloud as he thought of this, for he was very fond of the girl. He reproached himself over and over again for his past blindness and mistakes. He knew that he had brought his punishment ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... of whom about fifty were wounded, some of them dangerously. Moreover, ammunition was short, for they had shot away most of their arrows in the battle of the square, and we had no means of obtaining more. But, worst of all, the palace was not provisioned for a siege, and the mountaineers had with them only three days' rations of sun-dried beef or goat's flesh, and a hard kind of biscuit made of Indian corn mixed with barley ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... public knew, and as the American public is given to doing, it steadied down when it knew the worst. Fear of the unknown had changed the public into a myriad-souled beast gone berserk. Now that knowledge was exact men grew calm of face, determined, and women assumed the supporting role which down the ages has been that of brave women, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... hardly be worth the quotation, were it not that they are another evidence of the transparency of his mind. In looking through his prose works you see traces of all that was engaging his imagination and thought at the time. Poetry is the highest of expressive arts; and poets are the worst dissemblers or economisers of truth in the world. Their knowledge, like their feeling, possesses them, and must find expression as argument, or illustration, or figure, whatever the immediate matter in hand. The prose works of Milton are thus, from first to last, an exposition of himself. ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... that Mahr's worst fears were confirmed. But the torrent of accusation that burst from Gard's lips bore him down with the consciousness of the ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... widening to bottom, small handles. Green glazed figures of cat-head goddess, cats, pigs, and sacred eyes; coarse glass beads, yellow and black: copper wire bracelets. Glass beads with blue spots in circles of brown and white. Scarabs coarse and worst at 750. Fine work revived at 700 by Ethiopians. Glazes dull, dirty, green. Glass unknown. Coffins ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... barricade, and striding up and down there, defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would be the signal for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... and then got up and danced to the music. The singing swelled louder and louder as the dance grew faster and more furious, till the concert closed in a nocturnal orgy of unbridled license, which, but for the absence of intoxicants, might compare with the worst of the ancient bacchanalia. The singers in the cave were the old men and women who had ensconced themselves in it secretly during the day; but the hoax was not suspected by the children and young people, who firmly believed that the spirits of the dead ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... looking in. The lights were burning low in the rooms, on account of the heat; and within, in attitudes of exhaustion and helplessness sat mother and daughter in their several easy-chairs. Tom was on his back on the floor, which, being nicely matted, was not the worst place. A welcome break to the monotony of the evening was the entrance of Philip Dillwyn. Tom got up from the floor to welcome him, and went back then to ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... Siamese Sickness (mal de Siam), he refuses to stay in bed the prescribed time, and rises to say his mass. He faints at the altar; yet a few days later we hear of him on horseback again, travelling over the mountains in the worst and hottest season of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... wish the freedom of your country. You wish it for yourselves.... Do not then give the hand of fellowship to the worst foes of freedom that the world has ever seen.... You will not do this. I have faith in you. Impartial history will tell that, when your statesmen were hostile or coldly neutral, when many of your rich men were corrupt, when your press—which ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... me dying unregarded, wou'd then be fond and kind, and flatter me. [Soft tone. By Heaven, I'll hate thee then; nay, I will marry to be rich to hate thee: the worst of that, is but to suffer nine Days Wonderment. Is not that better than an Age of Scorn from a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... to the anger of Cain, and he threw himself upon his brother.[18] Abel was stronger than he, and he would have got the worst of it, but at the last moment he begged for mercy, and the gentle Abel released his hold upon him. Scarcely did he feel himself free, when he turned against Abel once more, and slew him. So true is the saying, "Do the evil no good, lest evil fall ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... many degrees of fabrication. Outside of the United Kingdom some of these stories have been more or less believed; even in his own national home there were always people ready and willing to accept the worst that they heard about a great public personage. Where he was known best, however, the influence of these things upon the reputation of the Prince of Wales was least and, in fact, so small as to afford little or no excuse for dealing with them. Abroad, ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... the edge of my table puffing his cigar. At the end of the hour's telling, he swung off and away, saying: 'That is not right.' Here I began to think that, after all, perhaps the rules for scanning Latin verse were not the worst infliction in the world. Moreover, it was clear that he was playing a game with me to find if I were capable of doing hard, continuous work without the support of a teacher, and this stimulated me to labor. I went at the task anew, discarded ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... At Alexandria the worst of their troubles awaited them, threatening to make all that had yet been done vain. The river, which ordinarily remains high till June, had not only failed to reach its usual height but had so fallen that they could not pass the rapids. General W.T. Sherman, ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... her a withering glance. "You—Woodfordite!" was the worst epithet she dared trust herself to before a stranger. "Then you'll have to hold the horses. There's no river to spill into here—and you don't have to ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs |
