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Gratuitous   /grətˈuətəs/   Listen
Gratuitous

adjective
1.
Without cause.
2.
Costing nothing.  Synonyms: complimentary, costless, free, gratis.  "Free admission"
3.
Unnecessary and unwarranted.  Synonyms: needless, uncalled-for.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Gratuitous" Quotes from Famous Books



... it freely. It came easy to me. I dug it out of Mother Earth, and there's plenty more where it came from. Seeing that I deprived you of access to your own money and all your personal belongings, you are entitled to this any way you look at it. And I want to throw in a bit of gratuitous advice—in case you should conclude to go back to the Meadows. They probably looked high and low for you. But there is no chance for them to learn where you actually did get to unless you yourself tell them. The most ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... ordinarily understood, seem to have lost their authority, when weighed in the balance against the vote of the majority. Very recently the members of an honourable and useful profession represented to a minister that his extension of a scheme of more or less gratuitous relief to a class which hitherto had been able and willing to pay its way, was likely to deprive them of their livelihood. His reply, inter alia, contained the argument that the class in question was very numerous and had many votes, and that he doubted whether ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... much better than I had expected. There's nothing wrong with the boy except his ineradicable temptation to impart to you his gratuitous tidbits of information. I can't object, of course, to Gershom having a college education: what I object to is his trying to give me one. I don't mind his wisdom, but I do hate to see him tear the whole tree of knowledge up by the roots and floor one with it. He has just ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... conduct through a trap-door, in order to punish with rigour all those, who, while walking about, should hit against each other; but who would magnificently reward the few whom he had not deprived of sight, in avoiding to run against their comrades. Such are the ideas, which the dogma of gratuitous predestination gives us ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... readers with apologetic explanations as though his art were recondite and the tendency of his work immoral would be a gratuitous impertinence. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... than I, and such a knave,' he says to Cornwall, by way of explaining his apparently gratuitous attack upon ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... honour with the reasoners of that day to assume not merely that the institutions called after Moses were not divinely dictated, nor even that they were codified at a later date than that attributed to them, but that they and the entire Pentateuch were a gratuitous forgery, executed after the return from the Captivity. Debarred, therefore, from one chief security against speculative delusion, the philosophers of France, in their eagerness to escape from what they deemed a superstition of the priests, flung themselves headlong ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... neighbours which commonplace writers commit, in the mere rounding and enforcing of their shallow sentences. "Jerome admits, indeed, with specious but doubtful humility, the inferiority of the unordained monk to the ordained priest," says Dean Milman in his eleventh chapter, following up his gratuitous doubt of Jerome's humility with no less gratuitous asseveration of the ambition of his opponents. "The clergy, no doubt, had the sagacity to foresee the dangerous rival as to influence and authority, which was rising up in ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... would watch the warden and steal a little extra, when he stepped out of sight, thus occasionally enjoying the genial warmth; if detected, however, to receive a gratuitous lecture. Finding, at length, that this extra labor was preying sadly upon their health, and having repeatedly importuned the warden for relief in vain, they turned to his wife, who informed him of the real effects being produced, with the assurance that the continuance ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... the condition he proposed, I could not without reluctance think of parting with my forty camels, especially when I reflected that the dervish would then be as rich as myself. Avarice made me unmindful that I was beforehand making an ungrateful return for a favour, purely gratuitous. But there was no time to hesitate; I must either accept of the proposal, or resolve to repent all my lifetime of losing, by my own fault, an opportunity of obtaining an immense fortune. That instant I collected all my camels, and after we had travelled some time, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... man in the moon and we must part. Hitherto some may have supposed their thoughts occupied with a mere creature of imagination, or gratuitous creation of an old-world mythology. Perhaps the man in the moon is nothing more: perhaps he is very much more. Possibly we have information of every being in the universe; and possibly there are beings in every existing world of which we know nothing whatever. The latter possibility we deem ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... to find there was the atmosphere, the atmosphere of gratuitous treachery, which in his view nothing could excuse; for he thought that even a passion of unrighteousness for its own sake could not excuse that. But could he detect it? Sniff it? Taste it? Receive some mysterious ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... flattery of women was a lost art that he intended to restore. Mike McCarthy carried in his pockets books which he read sitting in a chair before the hotel or on the stones before store windows. When on Saturdays the streets were filled with people, he stood on the corners giving gratuitous performances of his magical art with cards and coins, and eyeing country girls in the crowd. Once, a woman, the town stationer's wife, shouted at him, calling him a lazy lout, whereupon he threw a coin ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... them?" cried the high-born dame. "Do ye na ken, woman, that ye are bound to be liege vassals in all hunting, hosting, watching, and warding, when lawfully summoned thereto in my name? Your service is not gratuitous. I trow ye hae land for it.—Ye're kindly tenants; hae a cot-house, a kale-yard, and a cow's grass on the common.—Few hae been brought farther ben, and ye grudge your son suld gie me a day's ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Western Europe before the discovery of America. The Unknown, breaking in surf on his very shores, did not invite him, but dimly repelled. Thought about it, attraction toward it, would seem to him far-fetched, gratuitous, affected, indicating at best a feather-headed flightiness of mind. The sailors of Columbus probably regarded him much as Sancho Panza does Don Quixote, with an obscure, overpowering awe, and yet with a very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... is 'an unintelligent impulse, of which we can give no rational account.' It is inserted into our constitution solely to induce us to till our fields, to raise our winter fuel, and thus to meet the future on the perfectly gratuitous supposition that it will be ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... Here, his gratuitous assumption of a common bond drew a cold: "Pray, what reason have you to think that?" from Mahony. And without waiting for a reply he again said good night and turned ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... simply by chance I had been allowed to look through the half-opened door and I had seen the saddest possible desecration, the withered brightness of youth, a spirit neither made cringing nor yet dulled but as if bewildered in quivering hopelessness by gratuitous cruelty; self-confidence destroyed and, instead, a resigned recklessness, a mournful callousness (and all this simple, almost naive)—before the material and moral difficulties of the situation. The passive anguish of ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... began to dawn upon her. "You and Hamish were alone with the letter!" the echo of the words came thumping against her brain. But she beat it off. Suspect a Channing! "Arthur, I need not ask if you are innocent; it would be a gratuitous insult to you." ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... advice and plans could be applied where they are needed they would be extremely valuable. Suppose we found a society and present them to it for gratuitous distribution." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... encumbrance, is so only to the nation which is doomed to bear it on its shoulders; and an American, whose sole relation to it is to admire its picturesque effect upon society, ought to be the last man to quarrel with what affords him so much gratuitous enjoyment. Nevertheless, conservative as England is, and though I scarce ever found an Englishman who seemed really to desire change, there was continually a dull sound in my ears as if the old foundations of things were crumbling away. Some time ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of his embrace Good nature, and means no more harm than he can help Good and evil work together in this world Gossip always has some solid foundation, however small Graduated naturally enough the finer stages of self-deception Gratuitous insult Habit, what a sacred and admirable thing it is Hated one thing alone—which was 'bother' Have her profile very frequently while I am conversing with her He has been tolerably honest, Tom, for a man ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... slightest misunderstanding took place between the rulers of the most distant islands, than this doughty old cavalier on a throne, forthwith thrust his insolent spear into the matter, though it in no wise concerned him, and fell to irritating all parties by his gratuitous interference. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... county of Essex.' One would think, that if the buyers found themselves habitually cheated by made-up goods, they would find the remedy themselves, by insisting on seeing them, and declining, according to a Scottish saying, to buy 'a pig in a poke.' Another clause of the same act seems equally gratuitous: 'Provided always, that after the merchants have bought the same clothes to carry, and do carry them out of the realm, they may tack them and fold them at their pleasure, for the more easy carriage of them.' What ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various

... the saddle, the spectacle of the round-up with its brutish multitudes and its graceful riders, the dust and monotony and excitement and glory of the Trail, and especially the hundreds of incidental and gratuitous adventures of bears and antelope, of thirst and heat, of the joy of taking care of one's self—all these would have filled our days with the glittering, ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... sent these young women to Ship Island, five times of a day. They were very bad-mannered and always sat apart at one end of the cloth, talking against the "Yankees." As there was no direct provocation to do so, this boldness was gratuitous, and detracted rather than added to my estimate of the heroism of Southern women. I have known them to burst into the office, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... suppression of criticism? Certainly, to some extent. For even if the professional critics tell little more than the amateurs who offer friendly advice, their remarks have a greater weight—partly, indeed, because in a sense they are not gratuitous. All observers have noticed the fact that we rarely act on the opinion of mere friends, however sound. Moreover, no one can deny that when the critics, belonging as they do to many schools of thought and thoughtlessness, agree, they are likely to ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... phrase: "In case of doubt, look wise and work on his 'bowels.'" This simple equipment soon gave me a surprisingly high standing among the men. I was a medicine man of repute, and soon had a larger practice than I desired, as it was entirely gratuitous. ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... is a wonderful healer of moral distempers, and few young ladies endure the chains of an undesirable attachment for a period of seven whole months. It made him almost blush to think that this might be so, and that the gratuitous extension of his misfortune to Beatrice might be nothing more than the working of his own unconscious vanity—a vanity which, did she know of it, would move her to ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... Globe contained a long, carefully prepared and powerful attack upon Mr. Justice Wilson. Beginning with a tribute to the Bench of Ontario, it declared that no fault was to be found with the judgment of the court, and that the offence lay in the gratuitous ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... you not aware that he gave me three or four dozen of them for gratuitous distribution, as he calls it. Yes, it is called 'The Religious Attorney,' being a reconcilement between honesty and law, or a blessed union between light and darkness; by Solomon ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... your opinion about an article another is purchasing, unless asked to do so. To say to a customer about to make a purchase that the article can be bought cheaper at another store, is to offer a gratuitous insult to the clerk making ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... astonished at the misrepresentations. But I am glad I resolved not to answer. Perhaps it is selfish, but to answer and think more on the subject is too unpleasant. I am so sorry that Huxley by my means has been thus atrociously attacked. I do not suppose you much care about the gratuitous ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... of Cologne, as the main bastion of the impregnable Hindenburg Line, cannot be over-rated. Our strategical, voluntary and gratuitous crossing of the Rhine was carried ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various

... Even with assured prospect of recompense in the shape of Sidwell Warricombe's heart and hand, he could hardly submit to such an ordeal. As it was, reason having so often convinced him that he clung to a visionary hope, the torture became gratuitous, and its mere suggestion inspired him with a fierce resentment ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... the dust before one fourth of its own number. And this effect was a permanent one. Thenceforth for foreign powers to talk of mediation between the republic and the ancient master, to suggest schemes of reconciliation and of a return to obedience, was to offer gratuitous and trivial insult, and we shall very soon have occasion to mark the simple eloquence with which the thirty-eight Spanish standards of Turnhout, hung up in the old hall of the Hague, were made to reply to the pompous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... toward Winnipeg. Sam was perfectly aware of the discrepancy, but he knew better than to offer gratuitous explanation. The ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... envied the munificent establishment which he had received from Frederick, and the liberal pension which he drew from his treasury. But among his most active enemies were some physicians, who envied his reputation as a successful and a gratuitous practitioner of the healing art. Numbers of invalids flocked to Huen, and diseases, which resisted all other methods of cure, are said to have yielded to the panaceal prescription of the astrologer. Under the influence of such motives, these individuals ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... with nervousness so great a matter as the "Breach of Faith" question. In a book devoted chiefly to the deeds of soldiers it seems almost presumptuous to discuss an affair which involves the political honour of statesmen. In their unnecessary and gratuitous proclamation the Government of India declared, that they had no intention of interfering with the tribes, or of permanently occupying any territory, the troops might march through; whereas now they do interfere with the tribesmen, and have established garrisons at Dargai, ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... Peace, was sitting in the office of the Golden Age when we found him, reading the exchanges and offering gratuitous advice to the editor. He was a shortish man, thick in body, with sparse hair and hay-colored, ragged mustache. His face was florid, his pale eyes protruded. He was a wise-looking man, excellently well suited in appearance for ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... hundred: in Boston, two hundred; in other parts of the free States eleven hundred; and that of the remaining three hundred, one-half was sent as exchange with other papers, and eighty of the other half were divided equally between England and Hayti, leaving seventy copies for gratuitous distribution. The colored subscribers to the paper were to the whites as ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... Italian Government, at any rate the "Liga Nazionale" to whose endowment it contributes, had been taking in hand this question of elementary schools in Istria and Dalmatia among the Slav population. The "Liga" made gratuitous distribution of clothing, of boots, of school-books and so forth. Some indigent Slavs allowed themselves in this way to ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... prohibition specially applied to a period when manners had been barely retrieved from pagan impurities. The doctors belonging to the party of Charles VII, the apologists of the Pucelle, find exceeding difficulty in justifying her on this head. One of them—thought to be Gerson—makes the gratuitous supposition that the moment she dismounted from her horse, she was in the habit of resuming woman's apparel; confessing that Esther and Judith had had recourse to more natural and feminine means for their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... now occupied by the military school, which receives six hundred cadets. They are under the charge of an inspector-general and a numerous staff of professors. They pay forty cents a day for their board. The instruction is gratuitous and comprehends a curriculum almost identical with that of West Point. It occupies, however, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... dinner, because we don't stay here long. What is your scout's name?" And when he had been told it, he turned to Mr. Filcher and asked him, "What the doose he meant by not waiting on his master?" which, with the addition of a few gratuitous threats, had the effect of bringing that gentleman to his master's side, and reducing Mr. Verdant Green to a state of mind in which gratitude to his companion and a desire to beg his scout's pardon ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... episode in the life of John Fletcher was his association with the College of Trevecca, opened by the Countess of Huntingdon, for young men who desired to devote themselves to the service of Christ. A gratuitous education for three years, with lodging, board, and clothing, was provided for each student, the young men being afterwards free to ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen

... here, in its degree, as truly as anywhere else. If we can think of contempt as part of the Being of God, surely this must be His feeling for much of the wrong and suffering that finds a place in the human world. It is so gratuitous, so insensate, so unnecessary. Is it not a terrible reflection upon some of us, that after the Cross has been silently teaching the world these well-nigh two thousand years, it can yet be said with some show of reason, that the two forces that keep society, as we know it, together, ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... scholars—that is to say, after the time arrived when any one gave such an idea expression. We can imagine them saying: "You will oblige us to use four signs instead of one to write such an elementary syllable as 'bard,' for example. Out upon such endless perplexity!" Nor is such a suggestion purely gratuitous, for it is an historical fact that the old syllabary continued to be used in Babylon hundreds of years after the alphabetical system had been introduced.(7) Custom is everything in establishing our prejudices. The Japanese to-day rebel against the introduction ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... It is impossible for God to manifest love to a human being by inflicting everlasting torment upon him. It cannot do him good, because, according to this theory, the period of probation is past, and he has no power now to repent. As far, therefore, as the man himself is concerned, it is gratuitous suffering—torment inflicted without any purpose. It cannot be said that God has any love for the soul which he is treating in this way. He has cast it off. To that soul, nevermore, throughout the ages of an everlasting ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... passed through the crowds straggling to the park, and in exchange for gratuitous insults from small boys and girls left behind them long trails of thick dust and the choking smell of burnt gasoline. In the sun the mercury was at one hundred ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... in defence of the Methodists and others against such gratuitous and unjust imputations, consisted of about thirty octavo pages, appeared over the signature of "A Methodist Preacher;" it was commenced near Newmarket, in a cottage owned by the late Mr. Elias Smith, whose wife was a sister of the Lounts—a woman of great excellence. It was ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... the matter, the more one wonders that so empty and gratuitous a hubbub as this outcry against chance should have found so great an echo in the hearts of men. It is a word which tells us absolutely nothing about what chances, or about the modus operandi of the chancing; and the use of it as a war-cry ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... Court Theatre at Dresden. Herr Winkler, the secretary of that theatre, whom I have already mentioned, regularly reported progress; but as editor of the Abendzeitung, a paper then rather on the wane, he seized the opportunity presented by our negotiations in order to ask me to send him frequent and gratuitous contributions. The consequence was, that whenever I wanted to know anything concerning the fate of my opera, I had to oblige him by enclosing an article for his paper. Now, as these negotiations with the Court Theatre lasted a very long time, and involved a large number of ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... orders signed by senior executive officials who know them personally. For the museum contains too many of the secrets of crime to be a wholesome place for the general public, although the indiscriminate publicity that it has suffered in print has made it appear to be a kind of gratuitous show-place. If that were its only purpose, it would ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... would manifest itself in a change of the law which would authorize an excessive issue of paper for the purpose of inflating prices and winning popular favor. To that it may be answered that the ascription of such a motive to Congress is altogether gratuitous and inadmissible. The theory of our institutions would lead us to a different conclusion. But a perfect security against a proceeding so reckless would be found to exist in the very nature of things. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... Aberdeen. His last brochure on the subject is a letter to the Town Council of Edinburgh "On the Advancement of Learning in Scotland." Having made this matter a work of his life, he takes every opportunity to urge it, and, notwithstanding that he has got many gratuitous rebuffs, continues on his way cheerily, now delivering a lecture or speech on the subject, now writing letters in reply to this or that assailant, and now giving a more complete exposition of his views in the North ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... our journal has fallen so into neglect; but I see no chance of amendment. All my scribbling propensities will be far more than gratified in writing nonsense for the press; so that any gratuitous labor of the pen becomes peculiarly distasteful. Since the last date, we have paid a visit of nine days to Boston and Salem, whence we returned a week ago yesterday. Thus we lost above a week of delicious autumnal weather, which should have been spent in the woods or upon the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... earthly reason why the "Poco Mas o Menos" Club of San Francisco should have ever existed, or why its five harmless, indistinctive members should not have met and dined together as ordinary individuals. Still less was there any justification for the gratuitous opinion which obtained, that it was bold, bad, and brilliant. Looking back upon it over a quarter of a century and half a globe, I confess I cannot recall a single witticism, audacity, or humorous characteristic that belonged to it. Yet there was no doubt that we were thought to ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... my wife, "it is very seldom that a man gets any thanks for his gratuitous efforts in behalf of his fellow-beings; and although I must say that my services in raising money for the Association deserved recognition, I did not expect that the members would do themselves the justice to ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton

... pawnbroker's, while you are prevented proceeding on your way by that neat white gate with the neat white box of a house at its side? The only alternative left to the young men was to drive home again, dinnerless, a distance of twenty miles, with a jaded horse, or to find gratuitous accommodation for man and beast. In such a case Sheridan would simply have driven to the first inn, and by persuasion or stratagem contrived to elude payment, after having drunk the best wine and eaten the best dinner the house could afford. Hook was really more refined, as well as ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... monarchy had just fallen; there was no longer any enemy upon the Continent to struggle with the government of Napoleon; no internal resistance shackled his progress, or could afford the least pretext for the employment of arbitrary measures; what motive, therefore, could he have for prolonging the most gratuitous persecution of my mother? Fouche then permitted her to come and settle at the distance of twelve leagues from Paris, upon an estate belonging to M. de Castellane. There she finished Corinne, and superintended the printing of it. In other respects, ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... due to two reasons: firstly, it was a cardinal instance; secondly, it was a miracle not worked by Christ Himself, and therefore a discussion of its genuineness could offer no suggestion of personal fraud, and hence would avoid inflicting gratuitous ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... empty schoolroom. At one corner there was a desk, at which stood a young man at work on a business-looking book. Before him were several children of various ages and sizes, but all having one characteristic in common—the aspect of extreme poverty. The young man was a gratuitous servant of the public, and the place was, for the hour ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... "quite a disagreeable wet day!" What's the use of such a humbug expression as that? If it's a disagreeable and stormy day, every body finds it out, naturally. Full half of the people who appear solicitous about your health, display a gratuitous amount of humbug, for your pocket-book is more beloved than your health; and we have often wondered why matter-of-fact people don't out with it, when they meet, and say—"How's your pocket to-day? Sorry to hear you're out of money!" Or, instead ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... why Folco had told a perfectly gratuitous falsehood about Aurora, and whether he could possibly have lied merely for the sake of hurting him. If so, he had got his deserts. It mattered very little now, and it was a waste of thought to think of ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... twelve hours more than you have each day to reflect and to study you, reads the suspicion written upon your face at the very moment that it arises. She will never forget this gratuitous insult. Nothing can ever remedy that. All is now said and done, and the very next day, if she has opportunity, she will join ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... not propose," said the bishop, with quite gratuitous suggestiveness, "to treat you as the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... is a gratuitous illusion to suppose that modern war does not demand far more brutality, far more violence, and an action far more general than was formerly the case.—GENERAL v. HARTMANN, D.R., ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various

... reverence to the present hour. If it is true that he did not scruple to go beyond what we should regard as the limits of honourable warfare, it must be remembered that he was fighting an enemy who had also disregarded these limits, and much may be forgiven to brave men who are resisting a gratuitous war of conquest. When he died, his work seemed to have failed. But he had shown his countrymen how to resist Edward, and he had given sufficient evidence of the strength of national feeling, if only it could find a suitable ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... and, perhaps, sent out of the country. I will not enter into any defence of smuggling, it is sufficient to say, that there are pains and penalties attached to the infraction of certain laws, and that I choose to risk them—but Lord B. was not empowered by Government to attack me; it was a gratuitous act—and had I thrown him, and all his crew into the sea, I should have been justified, for it was in short, an act of piracy on their part. Now, as your father has thought to turn a yacht into a revenue cutter, you cannot be surprised at ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... much joking and laughter, particularly between Master Simon and a hale, ruddy-faced, white-headed farmer, who appeared to be the wit of the village; for I observed all his companions to wait with open mouths for his retorts, and burst into a gratuitous laugh before they could ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... I presume, to most of you, be gratuitous. If it were not, and you chanced to be in a sick state of body in which you disliked peaches, it would be, for the time, to you false information, and, so far as it was true of other people, to you useless. Nearly the whole study of aesthetics ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... her art; and in addition to that she is the directress of a gratuitous "School of Design" for young girls. When Paris was besieged by the Prussians, the studio and residence of Rosa Bonheur were spared and respected by special order ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various

... Between the two is the dim or obscure region of the formation of a new individual, in some unknown part of which, and in some wholly unknown way, the difference is intercalated. To introduce necessity here is gratuitous and unscientific; but here you must have it ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... is an honor to man, put upon him from above, as one of the gratuitous dignities of his being. "An undevout astronomer is mad," said one who had opened his mind to a broad grasp of the wonders which this upper heaven holds in its bosom. The floriculturist is an astronomer, with Newton's ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... inferior coolie labourer, with Kaffirs and Hottentots, and actually compelled to abandon their stores and residences to reside in one common ghetto upon the outskirts of the towns, a measure which entailed great losses apart from the gratuitous humiliation—to many it involved ruin and in fact meant ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... indignation which the pitiful episode called forth from the American people. The most encouraging feature of the whole affair is the withdrawal of several of Chillicothe's society girls from the contest because of the gratuitous insult tendered Miss Whitney in the Halliwell telegram, thus indicating that the old town's upper ten is not composed exclusively of pudding ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... adversary the monarch could, however, afford to despise, for he well knew the Count to be more dangerous as a friend than as an enemy; his cowardly dread of danger constantly impelling him, at the merest prospect of peril, to betray others in order to save himself; while his cunning, his gratuitous and unmanly cruelty, and the unblushing perfidy which recalled with only too much vividness the character of his father, Charles IX, rendered him at once unsafe and unpleasant as an associate. Despite all these drawbacks, Biron with his usual recklessness ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... Rome, where the Society has its principal university, it has been conferring degrees on its students without any opposition whatever, which would not be the case were the bulls in any way detective. But this [claim] is wholly gratuitous and censurable, as the said decrees of execution were issued by the audiencias and councils; nor should it be offered in opposition on the part of the college of Santo Tomas; nor should an attempt be made to reopen what has been resolved and decided legally with such full knowledge ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... had, however, one very sad result in depriving the navy of the eminent services of Commodore Porter. In 1824 a gratuitous insult, accompanied by outrage, offered to one of his officers, led him to land a party at the town of Foxardo, in Porto Rico, and force an apology from the guilty officials. Although no complaint seems to have been made by Spain, the United States Government took exception to his action ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... was apt to have much opportunity to encourage such a gratuitous aversion: to-morrow would see him on the road again, his back forever turned to ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... are able to appreciate the amount of gratuitous labor performed by the officers and committees of private book clubs. It is erroneous to suppose that beautiful books are a purely natural offspring of the book club. The preparation of the material for publication ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper

... have not only declined negotiation upon this subject, but by the principle they have assumed with reference to it have precluded even the means of negotiation. It becomes not the self respect of the United States either to solicit gratuitous favors or to accept as the grant of a favor that for which an ample equivalent is exacted. It remains to be determined by the respective Governments whether the trade shall be opened by acts of reciprocal legislation. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... class insult; and it certainly was not for the pot to call the kettle black. The aristocracy he defended, in spite of the political marriages by which it tried to secure breeding for itself, had its mind undertrained by silly schoolmasters and governesses, its character corrupted by gratuitous luxury, its self-respect adulterated to complete spuriousness by flattery and flunkeyism. It is no better to-day and never will be any better: our very peasants have something morally hardier in them that culminates occasionally in a Bunyan, a Burns, or a ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... there, knew very well that it could be of no practical assistance to him. Not a picture sold; and next day there were altogether seven people in the gallery, of whom five were the relations of men to whom he had given gratuitous teaching at one period or other of ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... outset of their connubial partnership, they started under the most favorable auspices—for, whereas other couples marry for love or money, they got married for 'nothing' taking advantage of the annual gratuitous splicings performed at Shoreditch Church on one ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... it was known that when in London much of his business was done at Tattersall's. But the horsey man is generally on the alert to take care that no secret of his trade escapes from him unawares. And it may be that he was thus prepared for a gratuitous lie. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... with his father which he knew lay before him. This was quite characteristic of him; he had a singular command over his imagination when he had made up his mind to anything, and never indulged in the gratuitous pain of anticipation. Today he had an additional bulwark against such self-inflicted worries, for he had spent his last two hours in town at the vocal recital of a singer who a month before had stirred the critics into rhapsody over her gift of lyric song. Up till now he had had no ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... times in the week to the council chamber to be instructed by gratuitous teachers. On Sunday evening service is performed according to the Church of England by Mr. Fleming, and the children are said to be attentive and well-behaved. The Methodists of the New Connection have them also under spiritual instruction in ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... dismiss the introductory part of his letter, merely observing that his "logical inference" is quite gratuitous and unwarranted. He says himself that its absurdity is obvious, in which I quite ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... Ffolliot said stiffly, "against your gratuitous assumption that I care nothing for ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... given under its auspices in Plymouth Church. When the time for the concert under Edward's presidency came around, he decided that the occasion should be unique so as to insure a crowded house. He induced Mr. Beecher to preside; he got General Grant's promise to come and speak; he secured the gratuitous services of Emma C. Thursby, Annie Louise Cary, Clara Louise Kellogg, and Evelyn Lyon Hegeman, all of the first rank of concert-singers of that day, with the result that the church could not accommodate the crowd which naturally was attracted ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... exhausted nature could resist no longer, and be fell asleep on a little iron bed in the studio. There were days when he told me he had worked twenty hours out of the twenty-four. All this was a perfectly gratuitous expenditure of time and health that could not possibly ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... by a laughing, curly-haired young man named Fay. Fay had clear blue eyes, which seemed always to mock you. He could think up more diabolical schemes in ten minutes than the rest of the men in as many hours. Bennington came shortly to hate this man Fay. His attentions had so much of the gratuitous! For a number of days, even after the enjoyment of novelty had worn off, the Easterner returned bravely to Spanish Gulch every afternoon for the mail. It was a matter of pride with him. He did not like to be bluffed out. But ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... back on the sofa, suppressing with difficulty the audible expression of the bitterness I felt within. I knew Annabella's musical talents were superior to mine, but that was no reason why I should be treated as a perfect nonentity. The time and the manner of his asking her appeared like a gratuitous insult to me; and I could ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... friendly and neighborhood acquaintances of Mrs. Surratt for many years, bear witness to her untarnished name, to her discreet and Christian character, to the absence of all imputation of disloyalty, to her character for patriotism. Friends and servants attest to her voluntary and gratuitous beneficence to our soldiers stationed near her; and, "in charges for high treason, it is pertinent to inquire into the humanity of the prisoner toward those representing the government," is the maxim of the law; and, in addition, we invite your attention to the singular fact that of ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... all, quite calmly, just as she knew that Percy would wish her to do. The inevitable end was there, and she would not give to these callous wretches here the gratuitous spectacle of a despairing woman ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... the most trivial occurrences of our meeting and the very subject-matter of our conversation. I even remember the very words in which he declined a drink from my traveling-flask—for "It's a raw day," I said, by way of gratuitous excuse for offering it. "Yes," he said, smilingly motioning the temptation aside; "it is a raw day; but you're rather young in years to be doctoring the weather—at least you'd better change the treatment—they'll all be raw days for you ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... he characterised as "unmannerly, absurd, and illiterate that it must have been composed when the writer was intoxicated, mad, or under the influence of Lucifer," and he threatened that unless Huntington apologised for his gratuitous insults, he (Bramah) would assuredly expose him. The mechanician nevertheless proceeded gravely to explain and defend his "profession of faith," which was altogether unnecessary. On this Huntington returned ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... train at Narni. There was time to stroll far enough from the station to have a look at the famous old bridge of Augustus, broken short off in mid-Tiber. While I stood admiring the measure of impression was made to overflow by the gratuitous grace of a white-cowled monk who came trudging up the road that wound to the gate of the town. Narni stood, in its own presented felicity, on a hill a good space away, boxed in behind its perfect grey wall, and the monk, to oblige me, crept slowly along and disappeared within the aperture. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... hours—and Wolf was obliged to flee. But, inasmuch as the king's lettres de cachet in that time permitted no appeal, they are also passed over in history as being devoid of interest or historic significance. It may be added that the soldier-king had simply perpetrated a gratuitous outrage, and had not set the claims of law and right aside. He threatened to hang Wolf, and this threat he could have carried out with the help of his soldiers. Even brute force is not devoid of dignity when it acts openly and above-board. He did not insult his courts by asking ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... however, of Washington's Rules with the Hawkins version renders it doubtful whether the Virginia boy used the work of the London boy. The differences are more than the resemblances. If in some cases the faults of the Washington version appear gratuitous, the printed copy being before him, on the other hand it often suggests a closer approach to the French—of which language Washington is known to have been totally ignorant. As to the faults, where Hawkins says ceremonies "are too troublesome," Washington says they "is troublesome;" ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway

... failing was a fact as obvious as that her desire was only to be friendly; brief reflection persuaded Sally that it was to her own interest neither to snub nor to neglect this gratuitous source of information. With some guilty conceit, befitting one indulging in all most Machiavellian subtlety, she let fall an extravagantly absent-minded "Yes?" and was rewarded, quite properly, with a garrulous history of her predecessor's career, from ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... result of injury from falls and accidents, is particularly difficult of permanent cure. The following gratuitous recommendations are from cases belonging to this class who entirely approve of the publication, with full name, photo-gravure ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair amount of laughter among his entourage. As regards Bloom he, without the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the door and reflected upon the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... certainly pushes the brilliant fantasy of the saga beyond his strict needs. The romance of the blood-royal, for instance—it would be hard to argue that the book honestly requires the high colour of that infusion, and all the pervading thrill that Meredith gets from it; Richmond Roy is largely gratuitous, a piece of indulgence on Meredith's part. But that objection is not likely to be pressed very severely, and anyhow Harry is firmly established in the forefront. He tells his story, he describes the company and the scenes ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... great deal of gratuitous instruction to the working classes?—Not so much to the working classes as to the class which especially attends the lectures on drawing, but which of course is connected with the working classes, and through which I know ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... have made mistakes in spelling out some of these words. I do not believe that these mistakes were serious, or that they affect in any important way the meaning of the Scripture, but the assumption that in this stupendous game of guess-work no wrong guesses were made is in the highest degree gratuitous. The substantial truthfulness of the record is not impeached by this discovery, but the verbal inerrancy of the document can never be maintained by any honest man ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... complete when, a few days after, she received, addressed in Lord Fitzjocelyn's handwriting, an Illustrated News, with a whole page containing 'the reception of Mrs. Dynevor of Cheveleigh,' with grand portraits of all the flounces and veils, many gratuitous moustaches, something passing for Oliver standing up with a wine-glass in his hand, a puppy that would have perfectly justified Mr. Ponsonby's aversion representing Lord Fitzjocelyn, and no gaps at ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a protest against the way in which Irish history is written by some English historians. In Wright's History of Ireland we find the following gratuitous assertion offered to excuse De Clare's crime: "Such a refinement of cruelty must have arisen from a suspicion of treachery, or from some other grievous offence with which we are not acquainted." If all the dark deeds of history are to be accounted ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... apparent. Equally difficult to perceive is the military necessity for forcibly interposing to prevent a bank from loaning its own money to the State. These things, if they have occurred, are, at the best, no better than gratuitous hostility. I wish I could hope that they may be shown not to have occurred. To make assurance against misunderstanding, I repeat that in the existing condition of things in Louisiana, the military must not be thwarted by the civil authority; and I add that on points of difference the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... from your notice, but to recommend him to such acquaintance as may best secure him from suffering by his own follies, and to take such general care both of his safety and his interest as may come within your power. His relations will thank you for any such gratuitous attention: at least they will not blame you for any evil that may happen, whether they thank you or ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... at announcing to Europe, that neither he nor his guard had been at all exposed. By some this care was regarded as a refinement of self-love; but those who were better informed thought very differently. They had never seen him display any vain or gratuitous passion, and their idea was, that at that distance, and at the head of an army of foreigners, who had no other bond of union but victory, he had judged it indispensable to preserve ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... here Douglas parted company with his Southern associates. He believed that the future of the great West depended upon this wise and beneficial use of the national domain. Neither could he agree with Eastern statesmen who deplored the gratuitous distribution of lands, which by sale would yield large revenues. His often-repeated reply was the quintessence of Western statesmanship. The pioneer who went into the wilderness, to wrestle with all manner of hardships, was a true wealth-producer. As he cleared ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... Donor Female Collegiate and Academical Institute, and then he gives money to found the Liberal Donor Professorship of Systematic and Metaphysical Theology, and still other sums to establish the Liberal Donor Orthopedic Chirurgical Gratuitous Hospital for Cripples and Clubfooted. Shall I say that the man is not generous, but only ostentatious? Not at all. He might gratify his vanity in other ways. His vanity dominates over his benevolence, and makes it pay tribute to his own glory. But his benevolence ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... ago she had drifted into the chorus, but had been altogether unlucky in her various ventures. She wasn't naturally graceful—had been slow learning to dance. Again and again, she'd been dropped at the end of three or four weeks of rehearsal (gratuitous of course) and seen another girl put in her place. When this hadn't happened, the shows she had been in had failed after ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... metal at a white heat in the uninterrupted light. 'I think the liveliness of those ballads as great a recommendation as any. After all, enough misery is known to us by our experiences and those of our friends, and what we see in the newspapers, for all purposes of chastening, without having gratuitous grief ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... thing to do a little gratuitous spiritual exercise every day, just to keep in training, to get the habit of conquering impulse, of doing disagreeable things. Nothing is more useful to a man than that power. We must not let our lives get too easy and our wills too soft. To jump out of bed when the whistle ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... of public plunder inaugurated by Jackson was in full blast, and an organized effort to reform it was the real need of the hour; but here was the weak point of the Whigs. They proceeded upon the perfectly gratuitous assumption that the shameless abuses against which they clamored would be thoroughly reformed should they come into power. They took it for granted that a change would be equivalent to a cure, and that the ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... to this gratuitous conveyance, he put himself to the trouble of inspecting the chauffeur—a capable-looking mechanic togged out in a rich black livery which, though relieved by a vast amount of silk braiding, was like the car guiltless ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... the property was soon after sold at public vendue, at less than half its value, and Alonzo's father and mother were compelled to abandon the premises, and take shelter in a little hut, belonging to a neighbouring farmer, illy and temporarily furnished by the gratuitous ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... CHARITIES.) The word in O. Eng. was aelmysse, and is derived through the Teutonic adaptation (cf. the modern Ger. almosen ) of the Latinized form of the Gr. lleemosbne, compassion or mercy, from ileos, pity. The English word "eleemosynary,'' that which is given in the way of alms, charitable, gratuitous, derives direct from the Greek. "Alms'' is often, like "riches,'' wrongly taken as ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Warrington taught Miss Laura to cry "Hear! hear!" and tapped the table with his knuckles. Pidgeon the attendant grinned, and honest Doctor Goodenough found the party so merrily engaged, when he came in to pay his faithful gratuitous visit. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... be born into the world, and not into a fairy tale, you see. But it's a perfectly gratuitous assumption, that I ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... method is thus wholly inadequate to solve the question, physiological reasoning appears also to be not perfectly conclusive. Many physiologists, not unnaturally desirous of upsetting what they regard as a gratuitous metaphysical hypothesis, have pronounced in favour of an absolutely dreamless or unconscious sleep. From the physiological point of view, there is no mystery in a totally suspended mental activity. On the other hand, there is much to be ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... to reply in words to a gratuitous taunt I could soon answer by deed. The doctor having handed me his lantern, I held it in one hand, the letter in the other. The writing was that of Philip Winwood, and the letter ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... consciousness itself, which constitutes Brahman's nature, is that imperfection.—But if Brahman itself constitutes the imperfection, then Brahman is the basis of the appearance of a world, and it is gratuitous to assume an additional avidya to account for the vorld. Moreover, as Brahman is eternal, it would follow from this hypothesis that no release could ever take place. Unless, therefore, you admit a real imperfection apart from Brahman, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... Adam Smith, who has very ably written on the Wealth of Nations, says: 'No plan has promised to effect a change of manners with equal ease and simplicity since the days of the Apostles.'" These schools were instituted for the purpose of giving gratuitous instruction to all comers for four or five hours every Sunday in the ordinary branches of primary education, and they were opposed by some leading ecclesiastics—among others by a liberal divine like Bishop ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... record in the Acts and also the Pauline Letters bear testimony—at once warrants and explains the ancient assumption that we have here a writing as truly coloured by the influence of Paul as that of Mark was by Peter. This is especially the Gospel of gratuitous and universal salvation. Its integrity has recently been placed beyond dispute. Marcion's edition of it in 140, A.D., was a mutilation ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth

... to put aside 395 Her trappings here, should strip them off abashed Before antiquity and stedfast truth And strong book-mindedness; and over all A healthy sound simplicity should reign, A seemly plainness, name it what you will, 400 Republican or pious. If these thoughts Are a gratuitous emblazonry That mocks the recreant age we live in, then Be Folly and False-seeming free to affect Whatever formal gait of discipline 405 Shall raise them highest in their own esteem— Let them parade among the Schools at will, But spare the House of God. Was ever known The witless shepherd ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Weaknesses, and, indeed, the whole series of complaints that arise from impurities of the blood. Minute reports of individual cases may be found in AYER'S AMERICAN ALMANAC, which is furnished to the druggists for gratuitous distribution, wherein may be learned the directions for its use, and some of the remarkable cures which it has made when all other remedies had failed to afford relief. Those cases are purposely taken from all sections of the country, in order that every reader may have ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... manhood. There is no passion more debilitating to the mind, unless, perhaps, it be that itch of public speaking which it not infrequently accompanies or begets. The two were conjoined in the case of Joseph; the acute stage of this double malady, that in which the patient delivers gratuitous lectures, soon declared itself with severity, and not many years had passed over his head before he would have travelled thirty miles to address an infant school. He was no student; his reading was confined to elementary textbooks and the daily papers; he did not even fly ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... masters' stipends were enlarged, and the surplus money set apart for college exhibitions. The head master receives L900 a year, the second master L400. The education is entirely gratuitous. The presentations to the school are in the gift of the Master of the Mercers' Company, which company has undoubtedly much limited Dean Colet's generous intentions. The school is rich in prizes and exhibitions. The latest chronicler of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... by accident, makes them beautifully. Pottery begins, for example, as a practical art, but the skilled potter cannot help spending a little excess vitality and habitual skill in adding a quite unnecessarily graceful curve, a gratuitous decoration to the utilitarian vessel he is making. In the words of Santayana, "What had to be done was, by imaginative races, done imaginatively; what had to be spoken or made was spoken or made fitly, lovingly, beautifully.... The ceaseless experimentation and fermentation ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... projecting ornaments; and hence the fear of the moon's voracity will lead to the upsetting of all the views, the studies, and the well-digested plans of several architects. Place a meteorologist on the council, and, despite the authority of the nurses, a whole scaffolding of gratuitous suppositions will be crumbled to dust by these few categorical and strict words of science; the moon does not exert the action that is ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... they want me to do," added the boy, whose tongue seemed to grow wonderfully glib under the gratuitous censure of ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... consummate man of the world—wise and heartless. How came he to take such gratuitous pains with the boy Godolphin? In the first place, Saville had no legitimate children; Godolphin was his relation; in the second place it may be observed that hackneyed and sated men of the world are fond of the young, in ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... increased to a small crowd and their dull humor had taken the form of cheerfully offering much gratuitous advice. "Tie into it, Slim—build up the old muscle." "Back her up and take a good run." "Go home an do some settinup exercises—come back next year." "Got to put the old back behind it, Bud—give her the gas." "Need ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... sergents-de-ville with Napoleonic beards, and from glasses of muddy absinthe, from gamblers playing dominoes at the cafes, and gamblers on the Bourse, from red ribbons in button-holes, from M. de Four, inventor of 'matrimonial specialities,' and the gratuitous consultations of Dr. Charles Albert, from liberal lectures and government pamphlets, from Parisian comedies and Parisian operas, from Parisian wit and Parisian ignorance.... Away! ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... theatrical affiliations in the years between 1583 and 1594 has been engendered by the utterly gratuitous assumption that he joined the Queen's players upon the organisation of that company by Edmund Tilney, the Master of the Revels, in 1583, leaving the Earl of Leicester's players along with Robert Wilson, John Laneham, and Richard Tarleton at that time. We have conclusive evidence, however, ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... generally speaking. I have often thought with amazement of the kindness shown by the press to our whole unworthy craft, and of the help so lavishly and freely given to rising and even risen authors. To put it coarsely, brutally, I do not suppose that any other business receives so much gratuitous advertising, except the theatre. It is, enormous, the space given in the newspapers to literary notes, literary announcements, reviews, interviews, personal paragraphs, biographies, and all the rest, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to the Memoirs, Marmont says (ii. 224), "In general, these Memoirs are of great veracity and powerful interest so long as they treat of what the author has seen and heard; but when he speaks of others, his work is only an assemblage of gratuitous suppositions and of false facts put ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... Smithson, it has always punctually paid an interest of six per cent. in gold upon the whole sum, and pledged its faith for a similar perpetual payment. It has also largely aided the institution by contributions to its museum, collections, and library, and by the gratuitous services of public officers in its behalf. Such was the bill passed by Congress in 1846, and which has always been most faithfully executed. So that the institution is now established upon a permanent basis, and is ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... was his distinction. Tennyson in beginning his "Maud" could not forget his chagrin over losing his patrimony years before as the result of an unhappy investment in the Patent Decorative Carving Company. These facts are not recalled here as a gratuitous disparagement of the truly great, but to insure a full realization of the tremendous competition which all really exacting thought has to face, even in the minds of the ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson

... shall offer to strike an effective blow, well knew that the victorious Republicans had neither the will nor the power to injure Southern property or to weaken the protection it enjoyed under the Constitution. Their hostility to the Union is purely gratuitous, or springs from motives of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... claws was, from their own point of view, as events proved, a vital error. Their second mistake was the rejection in 1908 by a body of Peers at Lansdowne House of the Licensing Bill, which had occupied many weeks of the time of the House of Commons. This was rightly regarded as a gratuitous insult to the House of elected representatives. Finally, their culminating act of folly was the rejection of the Budget in 1909. It was an outrageous breach of acknowledged constitutional practise, which alienated from them a large body of moderate opinion. In addition to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... and lupines; but, on questioning them, they one and all professed ignorance of the azaleas. A few days later, Master Johnny Stidger, whose desk was nearest to the window, was suddenly taken with spasms of apparently gratuitous laughter, that threatened the discipline of the school. All that Miss Mary could get from him was, that some one had been "looking in the winder." Irate and indignant, she sallied from her hive to do battle with the intruder. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various



Words linked to "Gratuitous" :   unmerited, unnecessary, unneeded, unpaid



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