"Big" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... One very big difference was illness. Nowadays, you go to the doctor, and very probably he or she will be able to cure you. In those days you either died or were confined to your bed for a long time. If you died but had been responsible for income coming into the house, in many cases ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... together in silence that evening, and after dinner strolled out to the big filbert-tree under which, for a few weeks in the year, Parson West had his dessert laid and sipped his thin port—an old common-room fashion to which he clung. To the end of his days he had the white cloth removed before dessert, and the fruits ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... files along the floor. Some had crept up upon the library-steps, as if, impatient to rejoin their companions, they were mounting to the shelves of their own accord. They invaded all accessible nooks and crannies of the room; big folios were bursting out from the larger gaps, and thin quartos trickling through chinks that otherwise would have been choked with dust; and even from the mouldings above the doors bracketed shelves thrust out, upon which rows of volumes perched, like penguins on a ledge of rock. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... persuade him to use a Winchester rifle, he would have received them with a pleasant smile and an offer of refreshment. He would have listened to their arguments with that patience of manner which characterises men of large stature, and for the rest of his days he would have continued to follow big game with an "Express" double-barrelled rifle as heretofore. Men who decide such small matters as these for themselves, after mature and somewhat slow consideration, have a way of also deciding the large issues of life without ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... it nowit is searchnumber one. Mein himmel! then there must be a number two, mein goot friend: for search is what you call to seek and dig, and this is but number one! Mine wort, there is one great big prize in de wheel for ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... "Him one big word is," sighed Iggy, trying to adjust his Polish tongue to the strange language called English. "But thinks me nothing is like ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... preceded and followed by an irregular mob of penitents in sack-cloth, with lighted tapers, and monks carrying crucifixes, bawling and bellowing the litanies: but the great object was a figure of the Virgin Mary, as big as the life, standing within a gilt frame, dressed in a gold stuff, with a large hoop, a great quantity of false jewels, her face painted and patched, and her hair frizzled and curled in the very extremity of the fashion. Very little ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... "Yes—and want the big oblong watch that's platinum and has diamonds all round the edge. Only you'd decide it was too expensive and choose one of white gold for a hundred dollar. Then I'd say: 'Expensive? I should say not!' And we'd go into the store and pretty ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... impoverishing to my estate, and the daily living of us all nothing but my daily industry. Neither from my person not my nature doth this choice arise; for he that supplieth this place ought to be a man big and comely, stately and well-spoken, his voice great, his carriage majestical, his nature haughty, and his purse plentiful and heavy: but contrarily, the stature of my body is small, myself not so well spoken, my voice low, my carriage lawyer-like, and of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... them if they were big? They can't hurt you. They're only about so long. I've got ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... stop what you're at now," went on Joseph, sitting down at the table, "if I had n't something in my mind as I think 'll interest you big, and may make some ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... number: is it dreadful if we retaliate with any aid to the Rutulians? Aeneas is away and ignorant; away and ignorant let him be. Paphos is thine and Idalium, thine high Cythera; why meddlest thou with fierce spirits and a city big with war? Is it we who would overthrow the tottering state of Phrygia? we? or he who brought the Achaeans down on the hapless Trojans? who made Europe and Asia bristle up in arms, and whose theft shattered the alliance? Was it in my guidance the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... that book and out of fear of punishment hid it under a chest in the kitchen. (The STRANGER is taken aback.) The wardrobe was painted in oak graining, and clothes hung in its upper part, whilst shoes stood below. This wardrobe seemed enormously big to you, for you were a small child, and you couldn't imagine it could ever be moved; but during spring cleaning at Easter what was hidden was brought to light. Fear drove you to put the blame on a schoolfellow. And now he had to endure torture, because appearances were against him, for you were ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... no means confines his attention to hunting monkeys and defenceless fish. He will hunt big game, and when hungry will not hesitate to ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... lying off the harbour at Yokohama was brilliantly lit from stem to stern. Between it and the shore the reflection of the full moon glittered on the water up to the steps of the big black landing-stage. The glamour of the eastern night and the moonlight combined to lend enchantment to a scene that by day is blatant and tawdry, and the countless coloured lamps twinkling along the sea wall and dotted over the Bluff transformed ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... "Amelia, who was now big with child, had often expressed the deepest concern at her apprehensions of my being some time commanded abroad; a circumstance, which she declared if it should ever happen to her, even though she ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... dejected at his departure than she had been even in his earliest absence. The winter was now slowly approaching, and the weather was cold and dreary. That year it was unusually rainy and tempestuous, and as the wild gusts howled around her solitary home—how solitary now!—or she heard the big drops hurrying down on the agitated lake, she shuddered at her own despondent thoughts, and dreaded the gloom and loneliness of the lengthened night. For the first time since she had lived with Godolphin she turned, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sententiously remarked Verner of the Horse Artillery. "He went a stunning pace for a while, and at last had to get out. Big flirtation—wife of commanding officer! Hawke acted very nicely. Said nothing—sacrificed himself. That's why the women all like him. Very safe man. But, he's a shy bird now." They dissected his past, guessed at his present, but could ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... to have their legitimate effect upon the business of the bar where the "old-timers" congregate to learn the news; and, between drinks, yarns of the good old days of '49 and '50, of "streaks of luck," of "big nuggets," and "wild times," are spun over and over again. Although the palmy days of the "diggin's" are no more, yet the finder of a "pocket" these days seems not a whit wiser than in the days when ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... arrows purposely made he For them that persecute.) Behold 50 He travels big with vanitie, Trouble he hath conceav'd of old As in a womb, and from that mould Hath at length brought forth ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... mile, and our number ony about fifty thowsand sleepers, and about ten times as many, as cums ewery day to hearn their living, how is it possibel for a much smaller number of Gents, with werry littel hexperiens, to do the same with a plaice about a hunderd and twenty times as big, and with about five millions of peepel in it? And you may trust what I says, for I had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... Last came the pupils of the elementary evening schools, and then it began to be a beautiful sight. They were of all ages, of all trades, and dressed in all sorts of ways,—men with gray hair, factory boys, artisans with big black beards. The little ones were at their ease; the men, a little embarrassed. The people clapped the oldest and the youngest, but none of the spectators laughed, as they did at our festival: all ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... at the compliment and showed her dimples. She was a pretty little thing with brown hair and big brown eyes. She was two years younger than her sister Peggy, and was as small for her age as Peggy was large for hers. She was taking the books from the lowest shelf, as she was ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... and it is. I could dance at a fair and not be particular about the women. Put me alongside a beef-steak and you shall see some love-making. Aye, doctor, I'll never get my bread as a living skeleton, the saints be good to me, my hold's too big for that!" ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere. These are not the big flakes heavy with moisture which melt as they touch the ground and are portentous of a soaking rain. It is to be in good earnest a wintry storm. The two or three people visible on the sidewalks have an aspect of endurance, a blue-nosed, frosty fortitude, which is evidently ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Breslau itself, hastened down into the Plain Country, to manoeuvre upon Loudon; but found no Loudon moving that way; and, in a day or two, learned that Landshut, so weakly guarded, had been picked up by a big corps of Austrians; and in another day or two, that Loudon (June 7th) had blocked Glatz,—Loudon's real intention now clear to Fouquet. As it was to Friedrich from the first; whose anger and astonishment at this loss of Landshut were great, when he heard ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... others for the sake of it, I can tell you of a land where you may find it in plenty. Beyond those lofty mountains," said he, pointing to the south-west, "lies a mighty sea, which people sail on with vessels almost as big as yours. All the streams that flow from the other side of these mountains abound in gold, and all the utensils of the people are made ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... papers," answered his big brother. "Boys, if we catch that man maybe we'll be able to find out what has ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... immediately drew Walter into a corner, and with a great effort, that made his face very red, pulled up the silver watch, which was so big, and so tight in his pocket, that it ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and said: "I knew you would be able to wheedle him. A little woman with a big motive is like faith, in that she ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... it myself," said a fat man, with a bunch of newly-purchased leeks in his hand. "I was in Santa Maria Novella, and saw it myself. The woman started up and threw out her arms, and cried out and said she saw a big bull with fiery horns coming down on the church to crush ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... ahead of our time,' he remarked, looking at the big clock. 'I dislike having a miscalculation ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... "Because there was a great scene in the House last night," he began, hurriedly; "because when you go back you'll find that Sefborough has smashed up over the assassination of Sir William Brice-Field at Meshed, and that you have made your mark in a big speech; and because —" Abruptly he stopped. The thing he had come to say—the thing he had meant to say—would not be said. Either his tongue or his resolution failed him, and for the instant he stood as silent and almost as ill at ease as his companion. Then all at once ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... so far as their work is socially sound, are driven on more by internal necessity than by the genuine love of gain. They make great profits because their works reach a scale at which, if the balance is on the right side at all, it is certain to be a big balance, and they no doubt tend to be interested in money as the sign of their success, and also as the basis of increased social power. But I believe the direct influence of the lust of gain on this type of mind to have been immensely exaggerated; and as proof I would refer, ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... the right to respect and in the right to the treatment of an equal. We believe that nobility of spirit, that high ideals, that capacity for sacrifice are nobler than material wealth. We know that these can be found in the little state as well as in the big one. In our respect for you who are small, and for you who are great, there can be no element of condescension or patronage, for that would do violence to our own conception of the dignity of independent sovereignty. We desire no benefits which are not the benefits rendered by honorable ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... organized pillage or even as a trade for hire, and with such success at all events that even the Roman historian Sallust acknowledges that the Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in feats of arms. They were the true soldiers-of-fortune of antiquity, as figures and descriptions represent them: with big but not sinewy bodies, with shaggy hair and long mustaches—quite a contrast to the Greeks and Romans, who shaved the head and upper lip; in variegated embroidered dresses, which in combat were not unfrequently thrown off; ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... was a young gourmand of John's Who'd a notion of dining off swans; To the "Backs" he took big nets To capture the cygnets, But was told they ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... but it might also have taken the edge off that fresh enthusiasm which made intercourse with him at all times seem like a breath of moorland air. Here he developed an independence of mind and a fearlessness of opinion which is rarely to be found in the atmosphere of a big ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... the seriousness bred by earlier experiences, came back with tenfold force. The popular saying was that Washington never smiled during the war, and, roughly speaking, this was quite true. In all those years of danger and trial, inasmuch as he was a man big of heart and brain, he had the gravity and the sadness born of responsibility, and the suffering sure to come to an unselfish mind. It was at this time that he began to be most closely observed of men, and hence came the idea that he never laughed, and ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... a basket of fish that astonishes all beholders. Big speckled beauties they are and in quantity ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... what tiny things you make us out—not so big as the Pygmies even, but positively grovelling on the face of the earth. I quite understand it; your thoughts are up aloft already. And we, the common men that walk the earth, shall mingle you with the Gods in our prayers; for you are translated above ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... When other philosophers were working out calculations about the size of the Sun and the commensurability of the sun-cycle and the moon-cycle, Epicurus contemptuously remarked that the Sun was probably about as big as it looked, or perhaps smaller: since fires at a distance generally look bigger than they are. The various theories of learned men were all possible but none certain. And as for the cycles, how did any one know that there was not a new sun shot off and extinguished every day?[113:4] ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... to look about, and then began a big circle around the train. Finding nothing, I swung a bigger one. That being equally unavailing, I did a larger third. Not a trace of foot or hoof within a half-mile of the cars! I had heard of blankets laid down to conceal a trail, of swathed feet, even of leathern horse-boots with cattle-hoofs ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... The big, rough hand opened, and the tiny insect, spreading its gossamer wings, buzzed away into the bright atmosphere, where it was ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Cento Camerelle, a big lazzarone, became inordinately abusive. My impression is that he had received about fifteen times his due; but, seeing our yacht in the offing, he conceived the idea that we were princes in our own country, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... that your young poet, your young worshiper, come elsewhere to receive a judgment than to the money-making publisher, and to the staring, vulgar crowd. You will provide it that he does not measure his voice against the big-drum thumping of the best-selling pomposities of the hour. You will provide it that he come, with all honor and all dignity, to the best and truest men that you can engage for the service; and that he come to be judged by one standard, ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... said the big man good-naturedly. "He can be taken to the orphanage of the 'Good Samaritan' if they bring him here, and you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... grieved to see any declension from her better nature. I think I am getting to think less of mere social power. I feel more than I used to do that, if one could literally live one's theories on moral strength, it would be a complete refutation of these ideas about the influence of money or a big accidental position. Old Harding was right when he said at luncheon to-day that disinterestedness counted very highly in the popular vote. The point about Henry Fox's elopement with Caroline Lennox ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... spread their Wings, they seem'd to have Feathers, of a Mixture of White and Carnation. He said, that by their Colour and Cry, one might have taken them for Magpies, but that they were sixteen Times as big; about the size of Vultures, having Combs upon their Heads, with crooked Beaks and Gorbellies. If there had been but three of them, one would ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... government assumed the fixed relations of the different tribes to particular districts. Oyster Bay and the Big River were deemed sufficiently precise definitions of those tribes, exposed to public jealousy and prosecution. It is true, they had no permanent villages, and accordingly no individual property in land; but the boundaries of each ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... table. A homely, but a very cheerful and happy board. The supper was had in the kitchen; the little remains of the fire that had boiled the kettle were not amiss after the damps of evening fell; and the room itself, with its big fireplace, high dark-painted wainscoting, and even the clean board floor, was not the least agreeable in the house. And the faces and figures that surrounded the table were manly, comely, and intelligent, in ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... mean that, but neither did he mean to be funny. "I'll be hangin' round heah, waitin' fer you. It's only a few months. Go on to your work, pard. You'll be a big man on the road ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... wash-stand, with a toilet-glass above it, and a cupboard beneath the basin containing two large metal ewers of fresh water; and alongside the wash-stand hung a couple of large, soft towels. There was a fine big bull's eye in the deck overhead, and a circular port in the ship's side, big enough for me to have crept through with some effort, had I so wished, the copper frame of which was glazed with plate glass a full ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... collapsed with what seemed to Henry VIII. the threatening attitude assumed by the Emperor and the Pope. Hereupon followed that historical chapter, so full of fatal consequences to Cromwell, and no less big with shame for the King's own story: the pitiful chapter ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself) Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians. Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? (He points about him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to) Caoutchouc ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... round, and put her at a big straggling hedge which she had no fears of her being unable to compass. There was, however, more of a drop on the further side than she had counted upon, and in some way, as the mare landed, floundering on the further side, something gave ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... kids, sleeping on their stiff wooden pillows - then on through the wood path - and here I find the mysterious white man (poor devil!) with his twenty years' certificate of good behaviour as a book-keeper, frozen out by the strikes in the colonies, come up here on a chance, no work to be found, big hotel bill, no ship to leave in - and come up to beg twenty dollars because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering to leave his portmanteau in pledge. Settle this, and on again; and here my house comes in view, and a war whoop fetches my wife and ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said. "Things look a lot different when the sun is shining, and out here, you see, Mrs. Fred, we have to do without and forget so many things that we bank a lot on the sun. You people who live in cities, you've got gas and big lamps, and I guess it doesn't bother you much whether the sun rises or doesn't rise, or what he does, you're independent; but with us it is different. The sun is the best thing we've got, and we go by him considerable. Providence knows how it is with ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... by a downward blow on the chin, by the unskilful introduction of a mouth gag, particularly while the patient is anaesthetised, or even in the attempt to take a big bite—say, of an apple. The dislocation that results from such causes ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... was seven years 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
... done—and I prolonged it as much as possible—I saw Hendrika was beginning to get jealous of Tota again. She glared at her and then at the big knife which was tied round her own body. I knew the knife again, it was the one with which she had tried to murder you, dear. At last she went so far as to draw the knife. I was paralyzed with fear, then suddenly I remembered that when she was our servant, and used to get out of temper and sulk, ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... before seen shortly made their appearance, flying round the ship. There is, for instance, the whale-bird, perfectly black on the top of the wings and body, and white underneath. It is, in size, between a Mother Carey and a Molly-hawk, which latter is very nearly as big as an albatross. Ice-birds and Cape-pigeons also fly about us in numbers; the latter are about the size of ordinary pigeons, black, mottled with white on the back, and ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... that you injure yourself in my eyes. Why, I am so far from doing so that I continually pull myself up for watching you too jealously, as to-day, when I have been dreading the effect upon you of other company in my absence, and thinking that you rather shut the gates against me when you have big-wigs ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... a try for it," asserted the lad. "If I can once locate the plain of the big temple I'll be near the entrance to the ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... them. There is an intimation as to the ownership of these two dogs in the facts that on certainly two occasions John Goodman was accompanied by the little spaniel (once when alone), from which it may perhaps be inferred that he was the dog's master; while the big mastiffs presence when only Peter Browne and Goodman were together suggests that Browne was her owner. The goats, swine, rabbits, and poultry were doubtless penned on the spar-deck forward, while possibly some poultry, and any sheep brought for food, may have been temporarily ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... fur hunters, Baranof sailed from Prince William Sound for the southeast. Pause was made early in May opposite Kyak—Bering's old landfall—to hunt sea-otter. The sloops hung on the offing, the hunting brigades, led by Baranof in one of the big skin canoes, paddling for the surf wash and kelp fields of the boisterous, rocky coast, which sea-otter frequent in rough weather. Dangers of the hunt never deterred Baranof. The wilder the turmoil of spray and billows, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the affair had been financial. He'd gone to Kenton, talked Baker's widow out of a couple of family photographs, and had hiked back to New York, hoping for a sale to a big daily. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... talking about the prospects of the "Big Push," and at last we all lapsed into silence, which was broken by the arrival of a lieutenant. The Captain looked up from his bench. "Hullo, what's ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... a big burly man, made a joke. "It's a lonely country between this and Brighton, sir," he said to Oscar. "Three of us will be none too many to see your precious packing-case safe into the railway station." Oscar took it seriously. "Are there any robbers in this neighborhood?" he asked. "Lord love ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... tell you what, it's like one of those great pot-holes in the big passage, only a hundred times as big; and the water's sweeping the boulders round, and grinding it out and carrying us along with it. Look here, we shall be kept on going round and round here, if we don't get smashed, till daylight; ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... the Steelyard—i.e., almost under the railway arches which lead to Cannon Street. It is not very much to look at. With one exception, indeed, it is the ugliest church in the whole of London City. It is a big oblong box, with round windows stuck in here and there. Wren designed it, I believe, one evening after dinner, when he had taken a glass or two more than his customary allowance of port or mountain. It is the church of All Hallows ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... big-lipped surprise, Breast-deep 'mid flower and spine: Her skin was like a grape, whose veins Run snow instead ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... blue or brown I cannot remember, if brown, certainly light brown. On appealing to the authority of a lady, I learn that brown was the hue. His colour was a trifle hectic, as is not unusual at Mentone, but he seemed, under his big blue cloak, to be of slender, yet agile frame. He was like nobody else whom I ever met. There was a sort of uncommon celerity in changing expression, in thought and speech. His cloak and Tyrolese hat (he would admit the innocent impeachment) ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... certain destiny—to be a leader of men, to develop your little world, and make of it a happier place for men and women to dwell in. So, dear love, you're just going to buck up and be spunky and take up your big life-task and perform it like the gentleman ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... following this attack, the big drums of the natives were sounding in all directions upon both sides of the river. Thousands of Baris had congregated upon the various heights, and it appeared that a general attack would be renewed ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... I am on the broad seas, den my tongue is mine own, you know. Die foolish beoples in the island, they say she is a wechsel-balg—what you call a fairy-elf changeling. My faith, they do not never have seen ein wechsel-balg; for I saw one myself at Cologne, and it was twice as big as yonder girl, and did break the poor people, with eating them up, like de great big cuckoo in the sparrow's nest; but this Venella eat no more than other girls—it was no ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... disturb this balance by extensive fishing, isn't it easy to see that you've got to make up for it somewhere? We don't have to worry over keeping up the supply of catfish, for example, because Nature is being left alone, and she has worked the problem out. But if suddenly a big catfish market developed—as it easily might, because, in spite of popular opinion, catfish is good eating—and if thousands of them were caught, it would be necessary to find some way to help Nature in keeping up ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... himself; others, that were big with desires of ostentation, did soon follow his example, making themselves captains and heads of the people, and built them strong holds for the supportation of their glory. But they did it, as I said, by Nimrod's example; wherefore it is said they went "out of that land." Just thus it was at the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of rump-steak (that has been kept till tender) into pieces half as big as your hand, trim off all the skin, sinews, and every part which has not indisputable pretensions to be eaten, and beat them with a chopper: chop very fine half a dozen eschalots, and add them to half an ounce of pepper and salt mixed; strew some of the mixture ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... suddenly wrenched himself free, and dodging round behind his enemy, sprang upon his back, and grasped his throat like a vise. Down went the valiant Monkey upon the hard grating with a whack that made his big mouth swell up bigger than ever; and, pinned beneath Frank's knee, he howled ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... wrought: in mine opinion, the workmanship of so much gold few men can amend. It was adorned and decked with rich and precious stones abundantly, among the which one was a rubie, which stood a handfull higher then the top of the crown vpon a small wier, it was as big as a good beane: the same crown was lined with a faire blacke Sable, worth by ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... as I say, five of them, two being adults and three young ones. In size they were enormous. Even the babies were as big as elephants, while the two large ones were far beyond all creatures I have ever seen. They had slate-colored skin, which was scaled like a lizard's and shimmered where the sun shone upon it. All five were sitting up, balancing themselves upon their ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... blood Dumb for vengeance. Name us that, Huddled in the corner dark Humped and grinning like a cat, Teeth for lips!—'tis she! she stares, Glittering through her bristled hairs. Rend her! Pierce her to the hilt! She is Murder: have her out! What! this little fist, as big As the southern summer fig! She is Madness, none may doubt. Death, who dares deny her guilt! Death, who says his blood she spilt! Make the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and to-day his Royal Highness is in full retreat before Pichegru: and he and my son Miles have taken Valenciennes for nothing! Ah, parson! would you not like to put on your old Sixty-third coat? (though I doubt Mrs. Blake could never make the buttons and button-holes meet again over your big body). The boys were acting a play with my militia sword. Oh, that I were young again, Mr. Blake! that I had not the gout in my toe; and I would saddle Rosinante and ride back into the world, and feel the pulses beat again, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... more agreeably, with a literary character, since the hour which I spent with Poet Montgomery a few months since. And, by-the-bye, there is a resemblance between the poet and the philosopher. In becoming acquainted with great men, I have become a convert to the opinion, that a big nose is an almost necessary appendage to the form of a man with a giant intellect. If those whom I have seen be a criterion, such is certainly the case. But I have spun out this too ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... Rex sat after supper under the big beech tree. Ruth, from her window, could see their cigars alight, and, now and then, hear ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... stiff as if it were made up of one single bone. Has he a mind to bow or turn his head? The neck bends every way as if all its bones were disjointed. This neck, a little raised above the shoulders, bears up with ease the head, which over-rules and governs the whole body. If it were less big it would bear no proportion with the rest of the machine; and if it were bigger it would not only be disproportioned and deformed, but, besides, its weight would both crush the neck and put man in danger of falling on the side it should lean a little too much. This head, fortified ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... but sky. Joe Kenmore looked out the plane window past the co-pilot's shoulder. He stared ahead to where the sky and cloud bank joined—it was many miles away—and tried to picture the job before him. Back in the cargo space of the plane there were four big crates. They contained the pilot gyros for the most important object then being built on Earth, and it wouldn't work properly without them. It was Joe's job to take that highly specialized, magnificently precise machinery ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... was smoking between roast beef and a leg of mutton, surrounded by large plates of olives, grapes, and oranges. The necessary was there and there was no lack of the superfluous. The host and hostess were so pleasant, and the big table, with its abundant fare, looked so inviting, that it would have been ungracious not to have seated themselves. The farm servants, on equal footing with their master, were already in their places to take their share of the meal. Paddy O'Moore pointed to the seats reserved for the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... had interesting news from the office that day; there was a big deal about to be consummated—the Glass Bottle Trust was ready for launching. For nearly a year old Harry Lockman—"You've heard of him, no doubt—he built up the great glass works at Lockmanville?" said Manning. ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... accompanied him. Reg and Hal, taking advantage of the lull, escaped to their cabins, but no sooner were they there than the Captain rushed down to them, shook hands, and complimented them on their disguise. He had not taken any notice of them before, for he was a big man in ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... gleaming axe, scalp-knife, and bows and arrows. At first there was the threatening rustle of preparation; then a great stillness came and stayed for a moment; after which, all at once, there sped through the air a big shout of battle, and the innumerable twang of flying arrows; and the opposing hosts ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... into Germany, I conversed on the subject with various learned men. And, when I had heard that Wolfgang Ratich was toiling at an amended Method, I had no rest of mind till I had got that gentleman into my presence; who, however, instead of a talk on the subject, offered me a big volume in quarto to read. I swallowed that trouble; and, having turned over the whole book, I saw that he detected not badly the maladies of our schools, but the remedies he proposed did not seem sufficient. Yours, Mr. Comenius, rest on firmer foundations. Go on with the work.' I answered that ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... It was as big as his finger-nail, and shone and gleamed in the sunlight, sparkling and reflecting the beams. Its value must be very great. But well he knew how dangerous it would be to exhibit it; on some pretext or other he would be thrown into prison, and the gem seized. It must be hidden ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... King George I. of blessed memory. The familiar cockroach, or 'black beetle,' of our lower regions, is an Oriental importation of the last century. The hum of the mosquito is now just beginning to be heard in the land, especially in some big London hotels. The Colorado beetle is hourly expected by Cunard steamer. The Canadian roadside erigeron is well established already in the remoter suburbs; the phylloxera battens on our hothouse vines; the American river-weed ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... however, when the magistrates, the clergy and many of the principal citizens entreated him, the proud old governor, who had "a heart as big as an ox, and a head that would have set adamant to scorn," consented to capitulate. He had held out for a week. On Monday morning, the 8th of September, 1664, he led his troops from the fort to a ship on which they were to embark for ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... had been lashed. She struck back with her best Nimrim repartee, "You're a nice one to call me a cow, you big, fat, old lummox!" ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... annually, was to go to you regularly, in one case, or to me, in the other. Oswald Banks was an American, whom my mother had met in London several years prior to her first marriage. He was the London representative of a big Pennsylvania manufacturing concern. He was ambitious, unscrupulous and clever beyond conception. He still is all of these and more, for ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... what he read was always improbable and impossible. Such people never believe in danger until they have a revolver thrust into their faces. And Locke had come aboard the schooner with a roll of yellow-backed bills so big that he could hold in his hand more wealth than all the ship's company together could earn in ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... and endurance of the troops, as well as the cause for which they are fighting, are at least of equal importance to their armament and numbers. "If their discipline and leading be defective, Providence seldom sides with the big battalions . . . and troops that cannot march are untrustworthy auxiliaries" ("The Science of War"). "An army which cannot march well is almost certain to be outmanoeuvred. A general whose strategy is based upon time calculations that are rendered inaccurate ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... effects of my late illness, the cheers with which I was greeted by the troops as I rode into Ayub Khan's camp and viewed the dead bodies of my gallant soldiers nearly unmanned me, and it was with a very big lump in my throat that I managed to say a few words of thanks to each corps in turn. When I returned to Kandahar, and threw myself on the bed in the little room prepared for me, I was dead-beat and quite unequal to the effort of reporting our success to the Queen or to the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... in their eagerness, rushed into the water to catch hold of some of their prey, when a monster gave a grab at Paddy's fingers, which made him spring back with alarm. The blacks directly after hauled out a shark big enough to have bitten off his arm, if not to have swallowed him. The same afternoon the adventurers got back to their drogher, the overseer having liberally supplied them with as much venison and fish as they could possibly consume. The chart was got out, and a consultation held as to the place ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... recalled the experiences of the day, from the time he received the present directly after breakfast. He had tested the implement many times in the course of the forenoon and afternoon, and by and by remembered snapping the big blade shut and slipping it into his pocket as he was going out of the house to the post office to perform his ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... our direct wires," Howard explained. "Our correspondents in all the big cities, east, west, north and south and in London, are at the other end of these wires. Let me ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... place, I'm not sure that I could do so; in the second, I don't see why I should try," Nasmyth replied. "On the whole, considering that he's a Western miner, I don't think he's running a serious risk. Perhaps I might hint that Bella Crestwick's hardly likely to consider him as big ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... I come through there last. With outlying settlers pouring in, there may be a dozen by this time. All I know is that the call's gone out for fifteen or twenty miles, asking every one to come in to the big log-rolling. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... with you for a karsie rascal. This Devonshire man, I think, is made all of pork, His hands made only for to heave up packs: His heart as fat and big as his face; As differing far from all brave gallant minds As I to serve the hogs, and drink with hinds, As I am very near now. Well, what remedy? When money, means, and friends do grow so small, Then farewell life, and there's an end ...
— The London Prodigal • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... exclaimed, "that it does not suit me to be made use of as an earnest to your combinations. Ah! it's an operation, is it? an enterprise, a big speculation? and you throw in your daughter in the bargain as a bonus. Well, no! You can tell your partner that the thing has ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... a pleasure?" the boy said under his breath. Life in him at that moment was one big heavy throbbing through all his being, full of mysterious powers unknown, of which Death was the least—yet, coming as he did a great shadow upon the feeblest, a terrible and awe-striking power beyond the ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... stuff as letters, I read men and nations. I can see through a millstone, though I can't see through a spelling-book. What a narrow idea a reading qualification is for a voter! I know and do what is right better than many big men who read. And there's that property qualification! just as bad. As if men and women themselves, who made money, were not of more value than the thing they made. If I were a delegate to the Constitutional Convention I could make suffrage as clear as daylight; but I am afraid these ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... everybody within a hundred leagues of the capitol knows, is a lawyer of eminence, full of good-nature, always cheerful, always instructive; a troublesome opponent at the bar; a man of genial sympathies and a big heart. If I have given him, as well as Smith, a nom de plume, it is out of regard for their modesty. We arranged to meet at the cars, the next morning at six, each with a rifle and fishing rod, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... once caught the bolts of the thunder, And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man? Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes, Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth, Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... named Elizabeth for its Grandmamas and an Aunt of each side. My Brother call'd today & inform'd me that M^r Powell intended setting out tomorrow for Quebeck & left a Letter for you which I shall send with this. He is almost if not quite as big as my uncle was last time I saw him—he was well & his family, he has three sons, the youngest about eleven months old, he has ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... lit in that black, blind face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge face of a sleeping giant; the eyes were too close together, and gave it the suggestion of a bestial sneer. And either by accident of this light or of some other, I could now read the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything that I should like to pull down with my hands if I could. Reared by a detected robber, it is framed to be the fashionable ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... Saint-Saens, "that French composers should find something intermediate between an intimate hearing of their music and a performance of it before the general public—something which would not be a speculative thing like a big concert, but which would be analogous to the artistic attraction of an exhibition of painting, and which would dare everything. It is a new aim for the Societe Nationale." But it does not seem that it has yet attained this ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... that, as soon as He gets into the ship He falls fast asleep on the wooden pillow—a hard bed for His head!—in the stern of the little fishing boat, and there He lies so tired—let us put it into plain prose and strip away the false veil of big words with which we invest that nature—so tired that the storm does not awake Him; and they have to come to Him, and lay their hands upon Him, and say to Him, 'Master, carest Thou not that we perish?' before compassion again beat back fatigue, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Island - 80% ice-covered, bleak and mountainous, dominated by a large massif (Big Ben) and an active volcano (Mawson Peak); McDonald Islands ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Beach twenty-four-hour race, last summer, where I finished third? Do you remember how I told you about the big driver, Allan Gerard, who drove my machine for two hours until I could hold the ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... in great numbers. Several bullocks have been killed and eaten by them within the last few days; and an old fakeer, who has for some months taken up his lodging on this side the river under a peepul- tree, in a straw hut just big enough to hold him, told us that he frequently saw them come down to drink in the stream near his lodging. We saw a great many deer in passing, but no tigers. The soil near the river is sandy, and the ground uneven, but still cultivable; and on this side ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... immediately answer. His thoughts were still traveling back cautiously over the ground which they had already explored. Once more, he was pondering on that little circle of plaited hair, having gold at each end, and looking just big enough to go round a woman's wrist, which he had seen in the drawer of Mr. Blyth's bureau. And once again, the identity between this object and the ornament which young Thorpe had described as being the thing called a Hair Bracelet, began surely and more surely ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... mercifully long enough to conceal her boots; her bonnet was perfectly straight, and the strings tied by some one who understood that bows should be pulled out and otherwise fancifully manipulated. As she carried a muff as large as a big drum, she had conceived the happy idea of dispensing altogether with gloves, and I saw that one of the fingers she gave me to shake was ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... the chiefs, Sehi Pandash, wishes to place himself under our protection, and he has sent to ask that the ship might go up and fire her big guns, that the tribes round may see that he has strong friends who can ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... must have a king. And so he gets the fancy of a Wasp-King; as the western Irish still believe in the Master Otter; as the Red Men believe in the King of the Buffalos, and find the bones of his ancestors in the Mammoth remains of Big-bone Lick; as the Philistines of Ekron—to quote a notorious instance—actually worshipped Baal-zebub, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... wanted to hug old Beppo, he told me to take my paws from the dog's neck; that I was a country bumpkin, and a big clumsy booby, and no brother of his; and the sooner I skedaddled home the better he should ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow |
