"Big" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to feel, my young friend. Some boys are so big-feeling and put on so many airs, that you'd think they were partners in the business, instead of beginning at the lowest round of the ladder. A while ago Mr. Gilbert brought round a cousin of his, about your age, that he wanted ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... much like another. So many avenues, wide or narrow, where the little creatures swarm in strange confusion; these bustling by, important; these halting to pow-wow with one another. These struggling with big burdens; those but basking in the sun. So many granaries stored with food; so many cells where the little things sleep, and eat, and love; the corner where lie their little white bones. This hive is larger, the next smaller. This nest lies on the ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... high way neere this towne, there lieth a big and long moore stone, containing the remainder of certaine ingraued letters, purporting some memorable antiquity, as it should seeme, but ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... stopped us dead, the suction ceased, and the New York with her tug trailing behind moved obliquely down the dock, her stern gliding along the side of the Titanic some few yards away. It gave an extraordinary impression of the absolute helplessness of a big liner in the absence of any motive power to guide her. But all excitement was not yet over: the New York turned her bows inward towards the quay, her stern swinging just clear of and passing in front ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... you would want a big room for giving parties and entertainments. Mary would make a lovely hostess, and the fisher folk would feel as if they were living in a new world. Oily Dave's dreadful whisky would have no chance at all against the attractions offered ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... write a line or two when, lo and behold! a big tear rolled upon the paper. 'Ha!' said he, 'that is enough, I will not write a word, they will understand that, I think,' and he ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... is yellow it makes it all the more valuable,' said a big fellow with a black beard and corduroy trousers. 'A yellow stone's as ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... care of herself. She is extremely perfect; she is as hard and clear-cut as some little figure of a sea-nymph in an antique intaglio, and I will warrant that she has not a grain more of sentiment or heart than if she was scooped out of a big amethyst. You can't scratch her even with a diamond. Extremely pretty,—really, when you know her, she is wonderfully pretty,—intelligent, determined, ambitious, unscrupulous, capable of looking at a man strangled ...
— The American • Henry James
... was our greatest favourite. There was "Katterina" (about fourteen) too old to make a pet of, but a gentle-charactered girl, always willing to please and never out of temper, and even in the big, hateful, beauty-destroying, high hob-nailed boots she could run up the mountain soil and clamber like a monkey. Then came, I believe, our best favourite, the bright, large-eyed, sparkling child "Vathoo," who was the real beauty of the family, about ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... big lounging chair, dressed in the uniform of the Egyptian army. His face was turned away as the prisoner entered, so that George was unable to realize all that Naoum had told him; but no time was given him to speculate, for Naoum broke the silence at once. With an easiness that astonished Helmar, ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... spinning wool on the big wheel, dressed in her light calico short gown and brown quilted petticoat; her arms were bare, and her hair was gathered away from her flushed cheeks and knotted behind her ears. The roof sloped down on one side, and the light came from a long, low window under the eaves. ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... anything I could say. Her misfortune was great in getting aground, while her more fortunate companions were in the full tide of happiness." This is a notable expression, and depicts the whole great-hearted, big-spoken stock of the English Admirals to a hair. It was to be "in the full tide of happiness" for Nelson to destroy five thousand five hundred and twenty-five of his fellow-creatures, and have his own scalp torn open by a piece of langridge shot. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a linen "buck-basket." He waited his opportunity; and, the next time that the gentleman in the rooms beneath took his cornet to his cottage near a wood, Mr. Bouncer, stationed on the landing above, played a thundering accompaniment on his big ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... abreast, A scourge and amazement, they swept to the west. With black bobbing noses, with red rolling tongues, Coughing forth steam from their leather-wrapped lungs, Cows with their calves, bulls big and vain, Goring the laggards, shaking the mane, Stamping flint feet, flashing moon eyes, Pompous and owlish, shaggy and wise. Like sea-cliffs and caves resounded their ranks With shoulders like waves, and undulant flanks. Tide upon tide of strange fury and foam, Spirits and ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... funny and I seen four pin-pricks in his nose. O' course I hunted for Mr. Rattler and killed him, then give Bill a pint of whiskey. It ce'tainly paralyzed him proper. He got salivated as a mule whacker on a spree. His nose swelled up till it was big as a barrel—never did get down to normal again. Since which the ol' plug has been ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... the bed a big trunk, in which were five canvas bags of various sizes, packed full ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... day they came suddenly upon the noon camp of the party from Fort Norman, and before Connie could recognize the big man in the uniform of an Inspector of the Mounted he was swung by strong arms clear of the ground. The next moment he was sobbing excitedly and pounding the shoulders of Big Dan McKeever with both his fists in an effort to ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... "Very big task—your earth," the girl answered. "Light Country more easy. Many light-rays in the Great City. Those he needs before he goes to your earth. More simple to get ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... will be your lot, yours and your brother's, and I have brought it upon you. Before very long, dear child, you will be alone in the world, with no one to help or befriend you. While you are still children, I shall leave you, and yet, if only I could wait till you are big enough and know enough to be Marie's guardian! But I shall not live so long. I love you so much that it makes me very unhappy to think of it. Dear children, if only you do not curse ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... an ample potation, "I've heard strange noises thereabout; and the big building there, men say, is ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... report at Corinth as soon as possible. The news from there indicated that a big battle was imminent. It also indicated that the Eleventh ran some risk of capture if it went through alone. But there was no way to avoid that risk. I therefore drew some extra horses, sent mounted ...
— A Battery at Close Quarters - A Paper Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion, - October 6, 1909 • Henry M. Neil
... has also come for major reform of our criminal justice statutes and acceleration of the drive against organized crime and drug trafficking. It's high time that we make our cities safe again. This administration hereby declares an all-out war on big-time organized crime and the drug racketeers who are poisoning our young people. We will also implement recommendations of our Task Force on Victims of Crime, which will report to me ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... in the land of the Ojibways, which is far in the north of the cold country, there lived an old Indian chief who had one son, named Iadilla. Now among the Ojibways, when a boy was almost big enough to become a warrior, before he could go out with the other braves to the hunt or to war, there was a great trial which he must undergo. Other lands and peoples have known similar customs. You remember how, ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... smells, some to tickle a flat stomach, others to wrinkle the nose. Under the rider the big stud moved, tossed his head, drawing the young man's attention from the town back to his own immediate concerns. The animal he rode, the two he led were, at first glance, far more noticeable than ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... if the road shifted enough to avoid any possibility of resting on the big Man-killer, then it would have to go through the range beyond here—would have to tunnel under the hills for a distance of three miles. That would cost millions of dollars. No, sir; the railroad will have to lay tracks across the Man-killer, or else ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... mechanics and followed Carnes into the big sedan. With a motorcycle policeman clearing a way for them, they roared across Washington and north along the Baltimore pike. Two hours and a half of driving brought them to Aberdeen and they turned down the concrete ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... strained it, pick out the Rose-mary and Ginger out of the strainer, and put it into the drink, and throw away the Eggshells, and so let it stand all night. The next day Tun it up in a barrel: Be sure the barrel be not too big: then take a little flower and a little bran, and the white of an Egg, and beat them well together, and put them into the barrel on the top of the Metheglin, after it is tunned up, and so let it stand till it hath done working; then stop it up as ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... that do do et. Ye see, they go out so they zay to catch fish, and then afore mornin' they do come across the big smugglers' boats, and taake the things to the coves they do know 'bout. They be all of a ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... you scorn the 'Echo de la Bievre,'" said Barbet; "why, that's the paper of the 12th arrondissement, from which you expect to be elected; its patrons are those big tanners ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... shone like satin. Their horse had rosettes here. (She points to her ears.) It was held by a boy of eight, fair, with frizzed hair and top boots. He looked as sly as a mouse—a very Cupid, though he swore like a trooper. His master is as fine as a picture, with a big diamond in his scarf. It ain't possible that a handsome young man who owns such a turnout as that is going to be the husband of Mlle. Mercadet? ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... to the quick. With a small gasp—as if he had struck her—she sank upon the arm of his big chair; her hands clasped, so that the knuckles stood out sharp and white; two spots of fire ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... reason for giving vent to this extravagant joy; and I must have had even at that time somehow or other a presentiment of what would soon happen, as in communicating this intelligence to a friend in India I made use of these words: "get a court dress made, my good friend, and a big wig, ruffled shirt, and hair-powder, and stick an old-fashioned sword by your side, for, depend on it, old fashions will come into play again; the most arbitrary and aristocratic notions will be revived and terrible machinations will ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... German, Russian, or French and there is the temptation for reader and author to forget the story of men as men and war as war. Even as in the long campaign in Manchuria I would see a battle simply as an argument to the death between little fellows in short khaki blouses and big fellows in long gray coats, so I see the Browns and the Grays in "The Last Shot" take ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... intelleck a lot more when she feels she's seed 'em all without knowin' it. To be sure, the monnyments of bygone days don't always agree with her; for Jone set her down on the tomb of Chaucer the other day, an' her little legs got as cold as the tomb itself, an' I told him that there was too big a difference between a tomb nigh four hundred years old an' a small baby which don't date back two years, for them to be sot together that way; an' he promised to be more careful after that. He gouged a little ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... the coat; it was a coat for talk, it promised confidences—having visibly received so many—and had tragic literary elbows. "Ah we're practical—we're practical!" St. George said as he saw his visitor look the place over. "Isn't it a good big cage for going round and round? My wife invented it and she locks me up here ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... less beer and bad tobacco, and more of the French or Italian spirit; or else you must have the great industrial and commercial ideas which have produced the gigantic development of London; but Berlin and its inhabitants will never be anything but an ugly little city, inhabited by an ugly big people. ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE ROCKIES," the four lads set off on horseback to spend part of their summer vacation in the mountains. The readers will remember too, the many thrilling experiences that the boys passed through on that eventful trip, between hunting big game in hand to hand conflict, fighting a real battle with the bad men of the mountains, and how in the end they discovered and took possession of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... in the northern countries. But it was understood that it was the Greek emperor's property and wealth; for, as all people say, there are whole houses there full of red gold. The kings were now very merry. Then there appeared an ingot among the rest as big as a man's hand. Harald took it in his hands and said, "Where is the gold, friend Magnus, that thou canst show ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... the little English Cemetery at Florence, the slim little girl that comes down the path, swinging the big bunch of keys, opens the high iron gate and leads you, without word or question, straight to the grave of Elizabeth ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... comes back," advised Diana, "We shall know more about the matter then. And—and—Jerry!" She stretched out her hand, which immediately disappeared within Jerry's big, boyish ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... West India Islands. The bread-fruit plant was no new discovery of either Wallis or Cook. So early as the year 1688, that excellent old navigator, Dampier, thus describes it:—'The bread-fruit, as we call it, grows on a large tree, as big and high as our largest apple-trees; it hath a spreading head, full of branches and dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a penny-loaf, when wheat is at five shillings the bushel; it is of a round shape, and hath a thick tough rind; when the fruit is ripe it is ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... arch raillery on the equivocal meaning of the word verres [b], do not merit a moment's attention. I omit the perpetual recurrence of the phrase, esse videatur [c], which chimes in our ears at the close of so many sentences, sounding big, but signifying nothing. These are petty blemishes; I mention them with reluctance. I say nothing of other defects equally improper: and yet those very defects are the delight of such as affect to call themselves ancient orators. I need not single them out by name: the men ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... the moment could scarcely obtain a hearing. An appeal for a second day's discussion was rejected; the debate abruptly closed; and the declaration of war was carried against seven dissentient votes. It was a decision big with consequences for France and for the world. From that day began the struggle between Revolutionary France and the established order of Europe. A period opened in which almost every State on the Continent gained some new character from the aggressions of France, from the laws ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... you may acquire dispassion, you must practice it in the everyday things of life. I have said that many confine abhyasa to meditation. That is why so few people attain to Yoga. Another error is to wait for some big opportunity. People prepare themselves for some tremendous sacrifice and forget the little things of everyday life, in which the mind is knitted to objects by a myriad tiny threads. These things, by their pettiness, fail to attract attention, and in waiting ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... who was a skillful sailor and knew all the signs of the sky, and all about the weather, happened to notice the singular appearance of the sky, and saw that there was every sign that a big storm was coming on. So he sent word to Governor Ovando again, telling him of this, and asking permission to run into the harbor of Santo Domingo with his ships to escape the coming storm. But the governor could not see that any storm was coming on. He said: Oh! that is only another ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... his pockets, groaning all the time, and was just going away when the lad whispered, "He's hiding some boots under his cloak." I was furious with rage with this vile thief, and I pulled his big ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... the little one had soles cut out of the inside husks of the corn; a poppy leaf made her an ample bonnet. The spider's web which the dew whitens, and the wind winds up in balls, seemed too coarse too weave her sheets with, and the cup of an acorn was big enough for Piccolissima. Her parents obtained all her wardrobe, and all the small furniture for her use from those thousands of skilful laborers, so adroit, and yet of whom we think so little, who hide themselves in all the walls, in the leaves of the trees turned up ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... the coping and gave way to a double contemplation,—of Paris, and of himself! The shadows deepened, the lights shone out afar, but still he did not move, carried along as he was on the current of a meditation, such as comes to many of us, big with the future and ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... earth could not do that. However, the chances are she will not come near me: she left the school quite a big girl, an immense girl, when I was only twelve. She used to smile at my capriccios; and once she kissed me—actually. She was an awful Sawny, though, and so affected: I think ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... down the big trees in the woods, so that they will block up all the roads that lead into the town," said one ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... you also to read almost as well as I do!" said Karl. "All you have been wishing for has been a book in big print, and perhaps if the merchant has one he will sell it ...
— The Woodcutter of Gutech • W.H.G. Kingston
... thy mocks of me, but Plutus is not the only blind god; he too is blind, the heedless Love! Beware of talking big. ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... of the aisle is a colossal bronze statue of St. Peter, seated on a huge chair or throne. We noticed that every one (Roman Catholic) bowed before the image, and afterwards advanced and kissed one of the feet, the big toe of which is quite worn away with the friction of countless myriads of devout lips, and the general wiping of the sacred digit by each individual before venturing to kiss it. It would seem, alas! that the present generation is not so very far removed from the superstitions and ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... majority; and those who preached it were to expect persecution. This warning is repeated so often in the Gospels that it would be superfluous to give quotations. He made it quite plain that the big battalions are never likely to be gathered before the narrow gate. He declared that only false prophets are well spoken of by the majority. When we consider the revolutionary character of the Christian idealism, ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... Granville; and that, by a proper course of feeding, white oysters have been converted into a much esteemed green sort, which sell at a high price. And further, a physician at Morlaix has succeeded in crossing a big, tough species with one that is small and delicate, and has obtained 'hybrids of large size ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... broke in sharply. "Abel Fletcher, the doctor's wife is wanting thee down in the kitchen-garden, and she says her green gooseberries bean't half as big as our'n." ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... of the best in the country. Any other shops that may exist in the district are commonly called peerie ( small) shops. They are very poor lads who have them, and what is more, they are generally selling to one or other of these three big shops. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... came a rap at the window, seven times repeated. These were the ravens. However, they did not venture into the room; they were afraid of the big gun that stood in the corner. They flew straight up into a tall fir-tree, and there they chattered away as usual, hidden by ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... back arched and her tail almost as big as Tommy Fox's brush, Miss Kitty Cat turned and ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... would return to the spring to scalp the dead Indians, he went directly toward the big oak tree. Once out of the forest a wide plain lay between him and the wooded knoll which marked the glade of Beautiful Spring. He crossed this stretch of verdant meadow-land, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Alicia Gaines, the one person in the world who didn't call me Miss Smith. "Oh, Sophy, it's like a fairy-story come true! Think of falling heir to an old, old, old lady's old, old, old house, in South Carolina! I hope there's a big old door with a fan-light, and a Greeky front with white pillars, and a big old hall, and a ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... water until it makes big bubbles. Add salt, then break the macaroni and put it in. Cover the saucepan and boil for fifteen minutes. The saucepan should not be too small, otherwise the macaroni will stick to ...
— Simple Italian Cookery • Antonia Isola
... plains beyond; then they turned to enter the inn again and prepare for their homeward drive. At that moment, an old Boer, named Hans Coetzee, with whom John was already slightly acquainted, came up, and, extending an enormously big and thick hand, bid them "Gooden daag." Hans Coetzee was a very favourable specimen of the better sort of Boer, and really came more or less up to the ideal picture that is so often drawn of that "simple pastoral people." He was a very large, stout man, with a fine ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... with wide streets, good shops, and a park. To Audrey Carlyle, when first she went there, it appeared a splendid place; she felt sure none of the big cities of the world could outdo it, even if they equalled it. The park, with its close-cut grass, its trees and flower-beds, asphalt paths, and green-painted seats, was to her one of ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... coorse, fur it be the owd man's birthdaaey. He be heighty this very daaey, and 'e telled all on us to be i' the long barn by one o'clock, fur he'll gie us a big dinner, and haaefe th' parish'll be theer, an' Miss Dora, an' Miss ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... staring and wondering at the uncouth apparition which had so unceremoniously appeared in the midst of them. This was not diminished, by her choosing to stand during those portions of the service, when pious females bend the knee. Miss Wilhelmina said, "that she was too big to kneel—that her prayers were just as good in one attitude as another. The soul had no legs or knees, that she could discover—and if the prayers did not come from the heart, they were of no use to her, or to any one else. She had not much faith in prayers of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... midwives. For every boy born, a royal bounty of two pots of wine and a dog were given: for every girl born, two pots of wine and a sucking-pig;— the dog, it is explained, being figurative of outdoor, the pig of internal economy. Triplets were to be suckled at the public expense; twins to be fed, when big enough, at the public expense. The chief wife's son must be mourned, with absence from official duty, for three years; other sons for two; and both kinds of son were to be equally buried with weeping and wailing. Orphans, and the sons of ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... else that Stafford King had devoted the whole of his time for the past three years to smashing the Boundary Gang. He knew that this grave young man with the steady, grey eyes, who sat on the other side of the big Louis XV table in the ornate private office of the Spillsbury Syndicate, had won his way to the chief position in the Criminal Intelligence Department by sheer genius, and that he was, of all men, ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... we have never had a suicide here before, sir," said the porter in reply to Harding as they descended the steps of the hotel; "but I don't see how we are to help it. Whenever the upper classes want to do away with themselves they chose one of the big hotels—the Grosvenor, the Langham, or ourselves. Indeed they say more has done the trick in the Langham than 'ere, I suppose because it is more central; but you can't get behind the motives of such people. They never think of the trouble and the harm they ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... because China's growing openness to the world economy has increased competitive pressure on Hong Kong's service industries, and Hong Kong's re-export business from China is a major driver of growth. Per capita GDP compares with the level in the four big economies of Western Europe. GDP growth averaged a strong 5% in 1989-1997, but Hong Kong suffered two recessions in the past 6 years because of the Asian financial crisis in 1998 and the global downturn of 2001-2002. The Severe Acute Respiratory ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... replied the other, "I'm bodily certain he walks without a shadow at his tail. See at that big tree there; why, the boughs bend before he touches 'em, like as they were stricken wi' the wind. I declare if the very trees don't step aside as if they're afraid of him. I'll not tarry ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... that was all, excepting, of course, the generals and marshals whom Napoleon always took with him for the inspection of various localities, and for the sake of consultation generally. I remember there was one—Davoust—nearly always with him—a big man with spectacles. They used to argue and quarrel sometimes. Once they were in the Emperor's study together—just those two and myself—I was unobserved—and they argued, and the Emperor seemed to be agreeing to something under protest. Suddenly ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... bribe. But there be those share not the general taint; The pestle-wielding Sage, the silk-gowned Saint. Redeem our fallen race from the dark shade That would confuse Professions with mere Trade. No, briefs and bills of costs may loom too big, Harpagon hide beneath a horsehair wig, Sangrado thrive on flattery and shrewd knack. And Dulcamara, safe in silence, quack; But—chortle, oh ye good, rejoice, ye wise!— ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... himself down on the bench. There was something big and serious in his dark eyes, something somberly reproachful and naive. Everybody felt it; even the judges listened, as if waiting for an echo clearer than his words. On the public benches all commotion ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... gently, "I certainly admire those lofty sentiments of yours. I admit they are maybe what ought to be. But the way I see it they just don't fit the facts. Out here the Federation space fleet is supposed to be the big stick. Only right now it's off playing mumbly-peg with ...
— This One Problem • M. C. Pease
... as third in those evening conclaves, a big slow-smiling, broad-faced young merchant, of the same kidney. In he drops with a nod and a smile, selects his cigar and his glass, and takes his place in the smoke-cloud of our meditations, radiating, without the effort of speech, that good thing—humanity; though one must ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... God had selected him for a distinct and set purpose in life, no matter how incapable and unworthy he deemed himself, and being assured of His help and protection, Jeremiah walked slowly homeward. For the first time he noticed that the sun had risen big and bright and warm. His mind was calm and at rest, but his heart was filled with woe because of what the future held out for ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... together by our own selves once more," returned Kate, nestling up to her mother on the big old-fashioned sofa, and resting her ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... smallest child alive, I do believe." She springs to her feet, and goes up to Rylton in a swaying, graceful little fashion. "I'm not so very big even now, am I?" ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... advertising, it would be signed by the advertising manager. Where it is desired to give unusual emphasis to the letter, it might occasionally be attributed to the president or to some other official higher up. The big name idea should not be overdone. People will soon catch on that the president would not have time to answer all of the company's correspondence. If he has, it is evident that a very small business ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... battle over some vexed question, generally of theology strongly mixed with politics, and a favourite cockpit was the ground in front of "St. Mary of the Snow." It was on one of those occasions that the steeple was brought down, together with a couple of monks who were hiding in it, and also the big bell Carolus; a gun was brought into action, and no doubt gave tone to the proceedings. This was in 1434; nearly two centuries later some visitors generally alluded to as the "Passauer," plundered ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... be one of the magical pictures of the coach road, of which the railway robbed us. For miles before reaching it, we used to look out for the wooded park, with its herds of mottled deer, and the great lake, where the sight of the swans always brought up that story of the big pike, choked like a boa, with a swan's neck. A story that seems to belong ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... Sexwolf, showing the whole of his teeth through his forest of beard, "love boast and big talk; and, on my troth, thou mayest have thy belly full of them yet; for we are still in the track of Harold, and Harold never leaves behind him a foe. Thou art as safe here, as if singing ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... moved off, the hall-porter helped him on with his big fur coat, and he, getting up beside me, told me to drive ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... I've grown up big, and have money of my own, and a full-sized walking-stick, I will set out early one morning, and never stop till I get to that little walled town." There ought to be no real difficulty in the task. It only meant asking here ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... The big, ruddy face retreated a few rungs. Phillips could hear the others scrambling further down. He got his head out of the way before pulling the switch that opened the hatch. With a subdued humming of electric motors, the massively constructed door swung down. One after another, they ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... Your conceit is just extraordinary! If you wanted any other good thing in life, from a big ship to a gold ring, would you not expect to buy it? Would your loving it, and wanting it, be sufficient? Jamie Logan knew well what he was about, when he brought us the letter from the Hendersons' firm. I love ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... who were on the Eiffel Tower that breezy afternoon saw a sight that never a man saw before. Out of the haze a yellow shape loomed larger each minute until its outlines could be distinctly seen. It was a big cigar-shaped balloon, and under it, swung by what seemed gossamer threads, was a basket in which was a man. The air-ship was going against the wind, and the man in the basket evidently had full control, ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... ever did was to get up a big army and kill people and grab a government. He had brains, of course, but he didn't put them to much real use, except for his own glory. You can't put Napoleon in the ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... Mr. Satan? What for art ye roaring that gate? Are you fawn inna little hell, instead o' the big muckil ane? Deil be in your reistit trams! What for have ye abscondit yoursel into ma ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... of the night's affair, and this appealed to his sense of humor. He cut off the hair from a part of his head, and stuck some raw cotton on top, and plastered it over with surgical tape. He stuck another big wad of surgical tape across his forehead, and a criss-cross of it on his cheek, and tied up his wrist in an excellent imitation of a sprain. Thus rigged out he repaired to the American House, and McGivney rewarded him with a hearty laugh, ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... her. She knew by heart the love-songs of the last century, and sang them in a low voice as she stitched away. She told stories, gave them news, went errands in the town, and on the sly lent the big girls some novel, that she always carried in the pockets of her apron, and of which the good lady herself swallowed long chapters in the intervals of ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... cat's in the well! Who put her in?— Little Johnny Green. Who pulled her out?— Big Johnny Stout. What a naughty boy was that To drown poor pussy cat, Who never did him any harm, But killed the ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... There was no appeal to blood-lust in the women's fight. There were no shining rods of steel. There was no martial music. We were not pledging precious lives and vast billions in our crusade for liberty. The beginning of our fight did indeed seem tiny and frail by the side of the big game of war, and so the senators were at first scarcely aware ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... trial in Tuscaloosa. Dey carried me. A man hel' me up an' made me p'int out who it was dat come to our house. I say, 'Dat's de man, aint it Marster Will?' He couldn' say "No", 'cause he'd tol' me twas him dat night. Dey put 'em in jail for six months an' give 'em a big fine. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... and were at once pounced on by Leopold Lincoln Bunn, the local reporter, a callow youth aflame with the chance for a big story of more than ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... when I get to Berlin, and only want to keep abreast of the real things that may be going to happen, which will take me all my time, for I haven't been used to big events, it will be very annoying to be caught and delayed at every turn by small nets of politenesses and phrases and considerations, by having to remember every blessed one of the manners they go in for so terribly here. I've never met ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... dreams were taking on new shapes, as though, with her growth, they reached out, too. And today, as she lay very still in the grass, something big, that was within her and yet had no substance, lifted and sung up to the blue arch of the sky and on to the sun and away westward with it, away like a bird in ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... ordinary house in a street, and looked a little old-fashioned and a little gloomy until you stepped into the drawing-room, which was furnished certainly with no pretension to modern taste or art, but opened with French windows into a glorious, big, old-world garden. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... here, but after a time I was permitted to go on. I said that before I was converted, I was even more zealous than any of them against this change, and greatly prejudiced against it. I actually flogged a big boy in my school for going to a chapel and professing to be converted; this I did before all the children, and he promised that he would "never be converted any more." I could, therefore, well understand their present feelings, and said that I was not angry with them, but rather prayed ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... when they saw the big horse, could not think what it meant, or what should be done with it. Various opinions were given. Some thought it was a peace offering, and one chief proposed that it should be dragged within the walls and placed in the citadel. ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... stairs and raced with a gentle rustle through the lower front entrance back into the night. It had caressed many familiar things on its way, for the walls were embellished with trophies from the big spaces where winds are born. There were skins of polar and Kodiak bear; of silver and black fox; there were antlered heads set above the fireplace and on the rough, bark-seamed pillars that supported the unceiled roof. A frieze of pressed and framed Alaska flora finished ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... and no one representing her. If he had had any lingering suspicion of her bidding, her non-appearance allayed it. He knew now that she was out of the race. Moreover, no New Brighton people had come. He whispered this information to Justice Rowan's brother behind his big, speckled hand covered with its red, spidery hair. Then the two forced their way out again, reentered the post-office, and borrowed a pen. Once there, McGaw took from his side pocket two large envelopes, the contents of which he spread out ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across it may be seen in large straggling letters ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... and more, from this day. Formal Siege to begin, so soon [as the artillery can come up' which is not for seven weeks yet]. And so, in fine, 'AUGUST 17th, all at once,' furious bombardment bursts out, from 36 mortars and above 100 big guns, disposed in batteries around. [Guerre de Boheme, ii. 149, 170.] To which the French, Belleisle's high soul animating everything, as furiously responded; making continual sallies of a hot desperate nature; especially, on the fifth day of the siege, one ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... stories of adventure at sea and in far-away lands. Here, also, to the inlets along the shore, the active lad and his playmates took their tiny boats and made believe they were sailors, John Paul always acting as captain. Sometimes when he was tired and all alone, he would sit by the hour watching the big waves rolling in, and dreaming perhaps of the day when he would ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... believe he was the authour of it[934]: 'there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life[935].' I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver's Travels, 'When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.' I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to defend him; but in vain. Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of age, young Fred felt few of the privations of slavery. In these childhood days he probably was as happy and carefree as the white children in the "big house." At liberty to come and go and play in the open sunshine, his early life was typical of the happier side of the negro life in slavery. What he missed of a mother's affection and a father's care was partly made up to him by the indulgent ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... attention, often nodding her head in approval, but occasionally shaking it vehemently when any project failed to meet with her approbation. Occasionally her sharp bird-like glance flashed over the other occupants of the room: at the three men yarning lazily by the big stove or playing cards at the dining table and at Nora making a pretense of reading a six-months-old magazine, or writing, her portfolio on her knee. Always, when Nora encountered that glance, she understood ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... the big-boned lad who had constituted himself Spruce's defender. "We 'eerd down in the village as 'ow you'd come 'ome, Miss, and as 'ow you'd give your orders that the Five Sisters was to be left stannin', and we coomed up ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the bellowing of Big Aleck, beseeching aid. They advanced cautiously, to spy out what had happened and saw him rolling from side to side, striving to rise, falling back. The woman was ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... reference to which Miss Walton gently told them she had not been able to ask any of the boys from the school, as she was afraid their parents would not approve; she hoped they were not disappointed, and that the big girls would dance with the little ones, as it ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... lower significance (the word is stored 'little-end-first'). The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors and a lot of communications and networking hardware are little-endian. See {big-endian}, {middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}. The term is sometimes used to describe the ordering of units other than bytes; most often, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... anomalous superstitions of newspaperdom is that nothing which happens to a reporter in the line of his work is or can be "big news." The mere fact that he is a reporter is enough to ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... violently agitated as she spoke, but was not entirely subdued by her excited heart, though more than one big tear ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... his teeth, the big drops of perspiration gathered thick and fast upon his brow, and tossing his hands frantically aloft, he cursed his brother, and swore to pursue him with his vengeance to the grave. Yes, that twin brother, who had been fed at the same breast—had been rocked ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... but I, who possess a faculty of loving less strong, shall love you more than any one else loves you; more indeed than you love yourself. Gratia and I will have to fight for it; I doubt I shall not get the better of her. For, as Plautus says, her love is like rain, whose big drops not only penetrate the dress, but drench to ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... among animals and plants, though there may be variation in plenty within certain limits, perhaps within even much wider limits than used to be thought possible, yet among these distinct organisms, little and big, new forms develop only after their ancestral type, in full accord with the record given in the first ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... as I rode with Wulfhere and Wislac to right and left, came my six men, big powerful housecarles, all in black armour and carrying red and black shields, and with a red cross on their helms' fronts. And the squarest of these six, he who seemed to be their leader, looked up at me, when I turned ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... and son, with the addition of a dog, a clump of trees, a church, and a steeple. He compresses between his hands the yielding cambric into a very small space, his body is fixed, his legs are slightly apart, his head wags, like a wooden mandarin's, with thoughts too big for utterance, till the moment arrives for the critical start, then, "Duplices tendens ad sidera palmas," he becomes quite Virgilian. The unfurled cambric flutters to the breeze of his own creation, and coruscations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... believe so," replied Tom. "I suppose there is always the chance that a lot of things may happen to a big herd like that. Some of them might try to wander away or they might get frightened and stampede. I read about a stampede once where the cattle ran right over the edge ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... your plates all the time—eating peas in the winter greener than grass, with nothing under the sun with them, and drinking coffee out of a cup about as big as a thimble. Give me the good old-fashioned way, I say, with peas and potatoes, and meat, and things, and cups that will hold half a pint and have some thickness that you can feel ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Discovery." Four months afterwards she wrote Dr. Pierce as follows: "She is growing fast, and never complains of any pain or ache. She sleeps well, and eats heartily. Her leg has filled up, and is as big as the other. She plays around all day with the other children. Everybody is astonished to see ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... been altering a certain conduit pertaining to a cistern, and there issued from it a great scorpion unperceived by them, which crept down from the cistern to the ground, and slank away beneath a bench. I saw it, and ran up to it, and laid my hands upon it. It was so big that when I had it in my little hands, it put out its tail on one side, and on the other thrust forth both its mouths. [1] They relate that I ran in high joy to my grandfather, crying out: "Look, grandpapa, at my pretty little crab." When he recognised that the creature ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... rules," she continued when her young companions had ceased to shout—"just a few big rules which will be quite easy for all ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... and within that is a white round hollow kernel of a gristly consistence, yet eatable, and in the central hollow about a spoonful of cool sweet liquor, like cocoa-nut milk. There is another tree, as big as a pear-tree, thick set with boughs and leaves resembling those of the bay, bearing a large globular fruit like a great foot-ball, hanging by a strong stalk; The rind is divided by seams into four quarters, and being cut green, yields a clammy substance like ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... a kind of obstinate candor. "I'm sure—flirting, indeed! Why, Marcia couldn't be an hour in the room with any fellow, young or old, that she wouldn't make big eyes at him. I like to see people turn saints at short notice. I'll go off and have it out with her myself, and make her keep a civil tongue in ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... a squirrel, angling away from you, his red bushy tail high in the air as he runs through the deep snow down the side of the ridge to a big, corky-barked oak, up which he goes to wait in his hollow up there until you have passed by. He did not seem to be going very fast but when you walk over to his tracks you find they are farther apart than you can step. The groups of four are about ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... He ceased: and a big tear of joy Rolled glittering down to the ground; Whilst all, having dropped their employ, Were buried in silence profound; A sweet, solemn pause long ensued— Each bosom o'erflowed with delight; Then heavenly converse renewed, Beguiled the ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... there was so little of her, the balance was made up for by the fact that there was so much of her husband. His large, rather flamboyant person, his big white face and curling brown beard, his loud voice and his falsetto laugh, his absolutely certain opinions, above all the fervency of his consciousness of being Lord Ashbridge and all which that ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson |
