"Improvement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pablo dragged it into the yard last spring at the end of his riata, and it lies buried in the San Gregorio. That makes the San Gregorio consecrated ground. I always had an idea I was a pretty fair American, but I dare say there's room for improvement. What do you want for that ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... made a hasty search around the station. A woman's face—scarcely an improvement on the man's—leaned out of the car window and jeered at the hunter, who cursed ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... more, for his voice was low and faint, the pain and dizziness still considerable; and the being fed without raising himself occupied him till the doctor came for his evening visit, and confirmed the sister's comfort in his improvement. She sat gazing as he fell asleep again, till Captain Harewood reminded her that her letter to Ewmouth must be sent before the mail closed. She turned to the window, where still lay her anxiously-worded bulletin, not yet closed; but as she took the pen, the blinding tears fell thick ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she bear it then? Supposing she were my companion for life—Humph! that startles one,—was I near thinking of it in earnest? She is beautiful; I should be proud of her abroad. But at home,—at home, where there should be confidence, would there not be constraint? Must no improvement ever be suggested, because it implies imperfection? I hope none of my friends will ever be on such terms with me; if I am touchy like a nettle, may they grasp me ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... The only improvement or change, whichever it may be, that has been made by others with which I am acquainted, is the triple steering, in which the hind wheel moves the opposite way to the others. The corresponding change in the bicycle ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... traveller, though no longer deemed worthy to serve in the ranks of the army. Nothing tended so much to the civilization of Europe as the substitution of standing armies for militia; and nothing has tended so much to the improvement of India under ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... "It's an improvement on wood-carving," was the reply. "All working parts, you see." The Captain set in motion some internal mechanism, and the turret guns trained slowly on to the beam. He pressed a button. "Electric bow and steaming lights!" His voice had a ring of almost boyish ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... this speech. Charles broke it by asking if Bateman intended to do anything in the improvement line ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... meeting the night before, and nothing was left for the two principals but to fight. Robert saw at a single glance that de Mezy's head was clear. Some of the mottled color had left his cheeks, but the effect was an improvement, and he bore himself like a man who was strong and confident. He and his seconds wore dark blue cloaks over their uniforms, which they laid aside when they saw that Robert and ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... in itself, and it was inexpressibly exhilarating to work for him. He was always so ready to be convinced that any suggested alteration was an improvement, and so full of gratitude for the trouble taken. I do not think that he ever used to forget to tell me what improvement he thought that I had made, and he used almost to excuse himself if he did not agree with any correction. I think I felt the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... to bind myself in servitude as a scribe of lifeless documents? To think that, after I had been nurtured and schooled and stored with all the knowledge necessary for the diffusion of good among those under me, and for the improvement of my domain, and for the fulfilment of the manifold duties of a landowner who is at once judge, administrator, and constable of his people, I should have entrusted my estate to an ignorant bailiff, and sought to maintain ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... have committed on men of other races. But if a people just coming out of slavery or barbarism commit a hundredth part of the same offence our righteous indignation knows no bounds. We have no recognition for their eager desire for civilization or for liberty, no generous appreciation of their improvement and promise. And the thousand things in them that give promise of good in the future are disregarded if there be any trace left in them ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Davy) of the Royal Society should write a book on field sports may at first sight appear rather unphilosophical; although it is not more fanciful than Bishop Berkeley's volume on tar water, Bishop Watson's improvement in the manufacture of gunpowder, Sir Walter Scott writing a sermon, or a Scotch minister inventing a safety gun, and, as we are told, presenting the same to the King in person. Be this as it may, since our first acquaintance with the "prince of piscators," the patriarch of anglers, Isaak ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... though I begin in method thus, that I shall keep up to it. If you will not allow for me, and keep in view the poor Pamela Andrews in all I write, but have Mrs. B. in your eye, what will become of me?—But I promise myself so much improvement from this correspondence, that I enter upon it with a greater delight than I can express, notwithstanding the mingled awe and diffidence that will accompany me, in every part of the agreeable task. To begin ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... a good, durable monarch, but not brilliant. He was the first to let people touch him on Tuesdays and Fridays for scrofula, or "king's evil." He also made a set of laws that were an improvement on some of the old ones. He was canonized about a century after his death by the Pope, but as to whether it "took" or not the ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... "it is surely no very cynical asperity" to think taste a character of the maturer growth. Smell and hearing are perhaps more developed; I remember many scents, many voices, and a great deal of spring singing in the woods. But hearing is capable of vast improvement as a means of pleasure; and there is all the world between gaping wonderment at the jargon of birds, and the emotion with which a man listens to ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may probably have influenced the conduct both of George and his friends in that very matter concerning which, as I have said, he and his mother had been just corresponding. The young heir of Virginia was travelling for his pleasure and improvement in foreign kingdoms. The queen, his mother, was in daily correspondence with his Highness, and constantly enjoined him to act as became his lofty station. There could be no doubt from her letters that ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with a like cheerful vigour since before his illness. The visit of his idolized great man had indeed been good for him, putting new spirit into him; and liveliness of the body followed that of the spirit. His improvement carried over the night: he slept well and awoke late, declaring that he was "pretty near a well man and ready for business right now." Moreover, having slept again in the afternoon, he dressed and went down to dinner, leaning but lightly on ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... with the same confidence and light heart that might characterize the least thoughtful man on Manhattan Island. While he had traveled many thousands of miles and burned many a midnight lamp to ascertain if improvement could not be made in the prevailing orthodox method of treating disease, he blindly accepted, as millions of strong men before him had done, the prevailing orthodox method of selecting ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... mountaineer had again ridden away, and soon after breakfast the girls began work on their equipment, patching up the tents and sewing the blankets that had been cut. The doctor reported that Lizzie and Sue were considerably improved, and decided that, if their improvement continued, he would return to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... feverishness had been removed by her long sleep of despair, and her energy revived under the bodily relief, and the fixed purpose of recovering in time to see her brother again; but the improvement was not yet trusted by Henry, who feared her doing too much unless he was himself watching over her, and therefore only paid Leonard a short visit in the forenoon, going and returning ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her eagerness; at that moment she forgot all about her convent and that she would not be at Starydwor to see the improvement. And then as the last and best promise she said, "And you would still be saved, daddy; God in heaven would forgive your sins." Her eyes shone as she looked at [Pg 300] him, as though she wanted to infect him with some ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... home at the end of ten delightful months, their mother was surprised at their growth and improvement. George especially was so grown as to come up to his younger-born brother. The boys could hardly be distinguished one from another, especially when their hair was powdered; but that ceremony being too cumbrous for country life, each of the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... always large and light, with windows on all sides, and well ventilated, offering a decided contrast in many respects to the less cleanly mills first referred to where the women must wear bonnets or hoods for the protection of the hair. In either case the process is certainly an improvement over the old plan of leaving the rags to decay in a cellar to expedite the removal of ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... his efforts to please. The present moment is his kingdom, time is his most dangerous enemy, as there is nothing durable in his exhibition. Whenever he is filled with the tradesman-like anxiety of securing a moderate maintenance for himself, his wife, and children, there is an end of all improvement. We do not mean to say that the old age of deserving artists ought not to be provided for. But to those players who from age, illness, or other accidents, have lost their qualifications for acting, we ought to give pensions to induce them to leave off instead of continuing to play. In general, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... and artfully decoyed him into his favorite science of Ethnology; and while he was speculating on the origin of the American savages, and considering the rival claims of Cimmerians, Israelites, and Scandinavians, I said quietly: "And you, sir, who think that all human improvement depends on the mixture of races; you, whose whole theory is an absolute sermon upon emigration, and the transplanting and interpolity of our species,—you, sir, should be the last man to chain your son, your ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... why? The answer is simple enough. I thought I might try out an improvement of our plan—something that might ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... "He feels the improvement in the health of his son—he, too, is better. And to Henry, what will you give? A remembrance from you will be such a dear, such ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Adoration of the Virgin a very bad substitute for Chastity, do yet themselves prefer bad Christians to good Infidels, and would hail with joy the conversion of India or China to their creed, though it should involve no improvement of character or life. I know every one believes that such conversion would inevitably result in amendment of heart and morals, but how many desire it mainly for that reason? How large a proportion of Protestants esteem it the great end of Religion to make its votaries ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... of the class of writers, most of them terribly unprofitable, who merely say literary things about social organisation, its institutions, and their improvement. Her feeling about society was less literary than scientific: it was not sentimental, but the business-like quality of a good administrator. She was moved less by pity or by any sense of the pathos and the hardness of the world, than by a sensible and energetic interest in good government ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... transition to India, without any notice of his journey thither; arid gravely asserts that he has often experienced, that if diamonds be wetted with May-dew, they will grow to a great size in a course of years. This probably is an improvement upon the Arabian philosophy or the production of pearls by the oysters catching that superlative seminal influence. The following singular article of intelligence respecting India, may be copied as a specimen of the work: ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... indeed within a distinct limit that the Revolutionary epoch effected its work of political and social change. Neither England nor Austria received the slightest impulse to progress. England, on the contrary, suspended almost all internal improvement during the course of the war; the domestic policy of the Austrian Court, so energetic in the reign immediately preceding the Revolution, became for the next twenty years, except where it was a policy of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... that her lessons were irregular. Besides herself, there were only two waiting girls, who remained in attendance during the hours of study, so that Yue-ts'un was spared considerable trouble and had a suitable opportunity to attend to the improvement ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... many other large cities, and his friend listening at the other end of the wire can hear every word he says. Professor Morse did not live long enough to see this wonderful invention, which, in some ways, is an improvement even ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... worse than that! It reminds me of a man at home who kept an underclothing store in our principal street and had a plaster cast of this gent's brother, I should think, in his window to show a suit of Jaegers on,—you know, a "combination"! And our Town Committee of Thirteen for the moral improvement of Peoria made the man take it out of his window and ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... of higher mathematics, used to be defined by means of quantity, as a term to which the terms of some series approximate as nearly as we please. But nowadays the limit is defined quite differently, and the series which it limits may not approximate to it at all. This improvement also is due to Cantor, and it is one which has revolutionised mathematics. Only order is now relevant to limits. Thus, for instance, the smallest of the infinite integers is the limit of the finite integers, though all finite integers are at an infinite distance from it. The study ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... efforts of the magistrates quoted by Lord BROUGHAM in the cause of Christianity, we yet conscientiously think their system capable of improvement. When the Rustic Police shall be properly established, we think they should be empowered to seize upon all suspected non-church goers every Saturday night, keeping them in the station-houses until Sunday morning, and then marching them, securely handcuffed, up the middle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... time to develop. It was no longer left to monks and lonely ladies, in convent and castle, but was the serious consideration of royalty and nobility. No need to dwell on the story of modern art, except as it affects the art of tapestry weaving. With the improvement of drawing that came in these years, a greater excellence of weave was required to translate properly the meaning of the artist. The human face which had hitherto been either blank or distorted in expression, ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... from the road which men are apt to take in working out their own self-improvement! How many forms of religion, and how many toiling souls put the cart before the horse, and in effect just reverse the process, and say practically—'first make yourselves righteous, and then you will have communion with God'! ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... public advantage. The members of our profession, unlike some others, have not been eager to apply for patents in the case of minor inventions; on the contrary, they have freely communicated to each other the experience as to improvement in detail which have resulted from their daily practice. It has been well said that all the world is wiser than any one man in it, and this free interchange of our various experiences has tended greatly to the advancement of our trade. But new departures, like ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... the improvement in him, and far more when he found that his mind's growth had at least kept pace with his body's change. It would be more correct to say that it had preceded and occasioned it; for however much the army may be able to do in that way, it had certainly, in Moray's case, only seconded ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... screaming and slapping, he urged her from a trot into a gallop, which was scarcely an improvement as to speed, and certainly not as to grace. It was like the gallop of an old cow. "Why don't ye go 'long!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... absurdity it is to talk of giving a 'lesson' to you!—you who will barely listen to a friend's advice,—you who will never take a hint for your mental education or improvement, you who are apt to fly into a passion, or take to the sulks when you are ever so slightly contradicted. Tiens, tiens! c'est drole! Now the words I am about to preach from, are supposed to have been uttered by Divine lips; and if you thoroughly believed this, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... will never be anything until some exertion is made by those who have control of it. A languid indifference or a sickly half-dead interest will never secure to it a permanency among the institutions of the day"; and the writer added that "unless measures for its improvement are speedily undertaken there is a danger that McGill College will soon be numbered among ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... expense, And join the herd to Sense and Truth unknown, Who dare not call their very thoughts their own, And share with these applause, a godlike bribe, In short, do anything, except prescribe:— For though in garb of Galen he appears, His practice is not equal to his years. Without improvement since he first began, A young Physician, though an ancient Man— Now let me cease—Physician, Parson, Dame, Still urge your task, and if you can, defame. The humble offerings of my Muse destroy, And crush, oh! noble ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... with personal hygiene, that is, the proper care of the individual. Hygienic improvement is limited, however, to the attainment of the best of which an individual is capable. Eugenics deals with the even more vital subject of improving the inherent type and capacities of the individuals of the future. It has been but briefly ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... atmosphere of the Crystal Palace is sweet with various flower-scents, and mild and balmy, though sufficiently fresh and cool. It would be a delightful climate for invalids to spend the winter in; and if all England could be roofed over with glass, it would be a great improvement on ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... August there was a prospect of improvement in the condition of the corps. Davoust had sent forty wagons of provisions to Hamburg, and the men were ordered to capture them. The attack was successful, but at what a price! Theodor Korner, the noble young poet whose songs will commemorate the deeds of the Lutzow corps ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... humble situation of porter on the ground floor of a house, the several floors of which were let out to different lodgers. This poor man and his wife gave me a temporary home with themselves. Among the lodgers of the house there was a young Virginian gentleman of fortune, traveling for pleasure and improvement; his name was Mr. ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... households gain their livelihoods from subsistence farming and migrant labor. Manufacturing depends largely on farm products to support the milling, canning, leather, and jute industries; other industries include textile, clothing, and construction (in particular, a major water improvement project which will permit the sale of water to South Africa). Industry's share of GDP rose from 6% in 1982 to 15% in 1989. Political and economic instability in South Africa raises uncertainty for Lesotho's economy, especially with ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... physically as his neighbor, but with the aid of so marvellous an invention as a stone hatchet he undoubtedly conquered his enemies and became a great prehistoric potentate, until some other great man made a larger and stronger hatchet; so down to the present invention has followed invention and improvement has been added to improvement to such an extent that it is difficult to imagine what new weapon of destruction man can ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... work completely and taken even a brief vacation, he might have averted the collapse which was to come. In the spring of 1905 he began to manifest alarming signs of nervous exhaustion. A summer in Peterboro brought no improvement. That autumn his ailment was seen to be far more deeply seated than had been supposed. There were indications of an obscure brain lesion, baffling but sinister. Then began a very gradual, progressive, and infinitely pathetic decline—the slow beginning of the end. He ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... filled with coal—an operation which two or three teams, lunging over muddy roads, formerly had great difficulty in performing. In order to lengthen the life of the road, a thin sheeting of iron was presently laid upon the wooden rail. The next improvement was an attempt to increase the durability of the wagons by making the wheels of iron. It was not, however, until 1767, when the first rails were cast entirely of iron with a flange at one side to keep the wheel steadily in place, that the modern roadbed in all its fundamental principles ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... disinclination to severe study. For the next two or three years much time was consumed in excursions up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and in adventurous journeys as far as the wilds of Ogdensburg and to Montreal, to the great improvement of his physical condition, and in the enjoyment of the gay society of Albany, Schenectady, Ballston, and Saratoga Springs. These explorations and visits gave him material for future use, and exercised his pen in agreeable correspondence; but his tendency at this time, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that this bountiful resource possessed by our country, remains in almost undiminished quantity." Later in the same speech he referred to the public lands as being "liberally offered,—in exhaustless quantities, and at moderate prices, enriching individuals and tending to the rapid improvement of ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... as for oysters, and add to it one pint of cold chicken, cut into dice. Boil three minutes. Fill the shells and serve. Where it is liked, one teaspoonful of onion juice is an improvement. Other poultry and all game can be served in patties the ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... An this improvement unquestionably dated, from the opening of the bank, and the most unreasonmg partisans of the banker held him to be the chief cause of the resulting development of the town, though he himself modestly disclaimed any ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... March (the previous crop having been Swedes), the blade was so yellow and the plant altogether so small and sickly in appearance, that I had it manured with a water-cart from a cesspool in April. This appeared to produce a wonderful improvement immediately, as the plant assumed a deep green and grew very fast, but when it ought to have shot, the heads seemed to stick in the sockets, the blade and straw became mildewed and made no progress in ripening. It was not fit ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... that Be, however, were relying on Gethryn to effect some improvement. He was in the Sixth, the First Fifteen, and the First Eleven. Also a backbone was included in his anatomy, and if he made up his mind to a thing, ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... the earth, the Turk, began his career in Christian history by cooeperating with a Christian Emperor in the recovery of the Holy Cross, of which a pagan, the ally of Russia, had got possession. The religious aspect, however, of this first era of their history, seems to have passed away without improvement; what they gained was a temporal advantage, a settlement in Georgia and its neighbourhood, which they have held from that day ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... would not know what the wild waves were saying, but would not care. No one would pretend that the repentance of old Paul Dombey throws any light on the psychology or philosophy of repentance. No doubt old Dombey, white-haired and amiable, was a great improvement on old Dombey brown-haired and unpleasant. But in his case the softening of the heart seems to bear too close a resemblance to softening of the brain. Whether these serious passages are as bad as ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... of woman is the elevation of the human race. Her interests can not be promoted or injured without advantage or injury to the whole race. The call for such a Convention is therefore addressed to those who desire the physical, intellectual, and moral improvement of mankind. All persons interested in its objects are respectfully requested to be present at its sessions and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... occurrence; the hut of the Indian, and the residence of the landed proprietor, are alike destitute of furniture and convenience; and South America, helpless and indigent with all her natural advantages, seems to rely for support and improvement on a very small portion of the surplus ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... be greatly, therefore, for the improvement and happiness of conversation, if society could be formed on this equality; but, as men are not ranked in this world by the different degrees of their understanding, but by other methods, and consequently all degrees of understanding often meet ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... ANIMAL LIFE into classes, orders, genera, and species; and, by comparing them with each other, to unravel the theory of diseases. It happened, perhaps unfortunately for the inquirers into the knowledge of diseases, that other sciences had received improvement previous to their own; whence, instead of comparing the properties belonging to animated nature with each other, they, idly ingenious, busied themselves in attempting to explain the laws of life by those of mechanism and chemistry; they considered the body as an hydraulic ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Grace forbade his help in dismounting, and ran to the door, where she rang one of those bells which sharply respond at the back of the panel to the turn of a crank in front; she observed, in a difference of paint, that this modern improvement had displaced an oldfashioned knocker. The door was opened by a tall and strikingly handsome old woman, whose black eyes still kept their keen light under her white hair, and whose dress showed none of the incongruity which was offensive in the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... reviews thoroughly and impartially the various printed papers and their contents, offering precepts and suggestions for improvement. Its reports are printed in the official organ of the association, and serve as a record of our ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... forced to trim, and rake, and mend in turn, so by the time the school began, the whole village was busy in a crusade that extended to streets and alleys, while the new teacher was the most popular person who had ever been there. Without having heard of such a thing, Kate had started Civic Improvement. ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... I've been soldiering man and boy these forty odd years, and, slids, I've never known better work." He ran me up and down with his eyes and, turning to Margaret, continued, "By the beard of the prophet, Madge, Master Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards is a vast improvement on the Baron." ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... be here remarked, that there has been, too, a remarkable improvement made in the construction of most all musical instruments; they having been brought to a nicety and beauty of form and tone probably not dreamed of by the makers ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... to get his master back to bed and to foment him, which was done. But on the next day there was no improvement, and on the third things were in far more serious case. The skin of his brow and arms and breast was inflamed, and covered with horrible purple blotches—the result of an otherwise harmless ointment with which the French empiric had ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... held on any other than a feudal tenure, and personal property began in its turn to confer influence and power, every improvement which was introduced in commerce or manufacture, was a fresh element of the equality of conditions. Henceforward every new discovery, every new want which it engendered, and every new desire which craved ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... that relate to religious or moral instruction, and he will write his life as ordered, and he is not to be put to hard labor for twenty-four hours. By this means he will recover his spirits and the time and moral improvement you have made him lose. You hear, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... treated, I perceive, like all who have preceded you: the bigotry of scholastic prejudices is intolerable. I have been for fifty years labouring to remove the veil, and have yet contrived 123 to raise only one corner of it. Nothing," continued the doctor, "has stinted the growth and hindered the improvement of sound learning more than a superstitious reverence for the ancients; by which it is presumed that their works form the summit of all learning, and that nothing can be added to their discoveries. Under this absurd and ridiculous prejudice, all the universities ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... formed and superintended by him. He boasted that every public office, without exception, which existed when he left Bengal, was his creation. It is quite true that this system, after all the improvements suggested by the experience of sixty years, still needs improvement, and that it was at first far more defective than it now is. But whoever seriously considers what it is to construct from the beginning the whole of a machine so vast and complex as a government, will allow that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Xylocopa violacea (Fig. 22), related to our Humble-bee, from which it differs in several anatomical characters, and by the dark violet tint of its wings, brings an improvement to the formation of the shelter which it makes in wood for its larvae. Instead of hollowing a mere retreat to place there all its eggs indiscriminately, it divides them into compartments, separated by horizontal partitions. ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... matters and in small, which are true no longer. "Headlong Hall" begins with the Holyhead Mail, and "Crotchet Castle" ends with a rotten borough. The Holyhead mail no longer keeps the same hours, nor stops at the Capel Cerig Inn, which the progress of improvement has thrown out of the road; and the rotten boroughs of 1830 have ceased to exist, though there are some very pretty pocket properties, which are their worthy successors. But the classes of tastes, feelings, and opinions, which were successively brought into play in these little tales, ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... Method, to set before the Eyes of Youth such Persons as have made a noble Progress in Fraternities less talk'd of; which seems tacitly to reproach their Sloth, who loll so heavily in the Seats of mighty Improvement: Active Spirits hereby would enlarge their Notions, whereas by a servile Imitation of one, or perhaps two, admired Men in their own Body, they can only gain a secondary and derivative kind of Fame. These Copiers of Men, like those of Authors or Painters, run into Affectations of some Oddness, which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... North, nature has already provided us with foundation material for the improvement of Juglans regia. We have many promising varieties that have appeared more or less fortuitously here and there over the country. It is conceded that all of these do not possess the full range of desirable qualities, but they are sufficiently attractive certainly to challenge the best efforts ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... of "The Footprints" some changes will be found, changes which all will agree make an improvement over the original volume. "Primeval California," first published in October, 1881, in the old Scribner's (now The Century) Magazine, when James G. Holland was its editor, is at times Stoddard at his ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... achromatic objective to be impossible that he was led to the invention of the reflecting telescope. Finding, as he believed, that the defects of the telescope could not be remedied by any application of the principle of refraction he was led to look in quite a different direction for the improvement of the tool on which the advancement of astronomy depended. The REFRACTION of light depended as he had found, upon the colour of the light. The laws of REFLECTION were, however, quite independent of the colour. Whether rays be red or green, blue or yellow, ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... Him to depart from what we might speak of as His original {197} intention? His will is either the absolutely best or it is not; if it is, why pray that He may modify it? If it is not, is He not less than perfectly good, since His design admits of improvement? Can we conceive of Him as doing something in answer to a human petition which He would not do apart from such a petition? Can we think of Him as being prevailed upon by our assiduities and importunities to alter His decrees—is not this whole notion rather ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... there is time, I shall get a run on shore while the ship takes in water. But this letter will tell you of my well-being so far, and in about six weeks after the date of it I hope to be with you. I hope you won't expect too much in the way of improvement in my health. I look forward, oh, so eagerly, to be with you again, and with my brats, big and little. God ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... to hear it, I'm sure," he said, slowly. "So do I, though there's still room for improvement. What was your particular ailment? Mine seems to have been ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... within doors, where certain society did not always amuse him, James Binnie sought excitement in the pleasures of the table, partaking of them the more freely now that his health could afford them the less. Clive, the sly rogue, observed a great improvement in the commissariat since his good father's time, ate his dinner with thankfulness, and made no remarks. Nor did he confide to us for a while his opinion that Mrs. Mack bored the good gentleman most severely; that he pined away under her kindnesses; sneaked off to bis study-chair ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from Indian outbreaks, and that the construction of the Pacific Railroad, an object of national importance, should not be interrupted by hostile tribes. These objects, as well as the material interests and the moral and intellectual improvement of the Indians, can be most effectually secured by concentrating them upon portions of country set apart for their exclusive use and located at points remote from our ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... my patients," he admitted interrogatively. Then, as if considering that Kennedy's manner was not to be mollified by anything short of a show of confidence, he added: "She came to me several months ago. I have had her under treatment for nervous trouble since then, without a marked improvement." ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... is a sign—the Brotherhood of the Peoples! The Jew will be the peace-messenger of the world." The Red Beadle ate on sceptically. He had studied The Brotherhood of the Peoples to the great improvement of his Hebrew but with little edification. He had even studied it in Hulda's original manuscript, which he had borrowed and never intended to return. But still he could not share his friends' belief in the perfectibility of mankind. Perhaps if they had known how he had tippled away his savings after ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... be sure of this, people of soft, gentle temperaments have their own difficulties with their own souls which we escape. Perhaps in the absence of such marked vices as bring one to open shame one might be slower to undertake vigorous self-improvement. You and I have no difficulty in seeing the sin ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Elihu Burritt, and you will be ashamed to grumble that you have no time—no chance for self-improvement. ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... till after I had been gathered to my fathers; but I took into consideration the duty that one man owes to another; and that my keeping back, and withholding these curious documents, would be in a great measure hindering the improvement of society, so far as I was myself personally concerned. Now this is a business, which James Batter agrees with me in thinking is carried on, furthered, and brought about, by every one furnishing his share of experience to the general ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... turned all his attention to the improvement of his tree, by clearing it of insects as soon as he discovered them, and propping up the stem, that it might grow perfectly upright. He dug all round it, to loosen the earth, that the root might receive nourishment ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... lent the long letter I writ him(7) to Prior, and I can't get Prior to return it. I want to have it printed, and to make up this Academy for the improvement of our language. Faith, we never shall improve it so much as FW has done; sall we? No, faith, ourrichar gangridge.(8) I dined privately with my friend Lewis, and then went to see Ned Southwell, and talk with him about Walls's business, and Mrs. South's. The latter will be done; but his own not. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... grew older there was no marked improvement, and Tony Croft was by general assent counted the laziest boy in the village. That he was lazy in certain matters merely because he was in a frenzy of industry to pursue certain others had nothing to do with the case, ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unpreparedness and overwhelming numbers of patients had been overcome to a large extent. Scientific management and modern efficiency had stepped in. Things were still capable of improvement. Gentlemen ambulance drivers are not always to be depended on. Nurses are not all of the same standard of efficiency. Supplies of one sort exceeded the demand, while other things were entirely lacking. Food of the kind that was needed by the very ill was scarce, expensive ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the hand-wheel. In 1767, a machine called the spinning-jenny was invented by a weaver named Hargreaves; but the greatest improvement in the art of spinning was effected by Mr. Arkwright, in 1768: these two inventions were combined, and again improved upon in 1776; so that by the new plan, the material can be converted into thread in a considerably ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... PATENT ARE GRANTED.—Section 4886 of the Revised Statutes of the United States provides that: "Any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, not known or used by others in this country, and not patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, before his invention or discovery thereof, and not in public use, or on sale for more than two years prior to ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... After leaving Gibraltar he felt out of sorts, and the ship's doctor and Dr. Nicholson, acting together, found him somewhat feverish. Symptoms of a chill developed, and on Tuesday he was no better, but after a temporary improvement became worse. Pneumonia succeeded, and so rapidly strengthened that on Wednesday morning the patient dictated a message, and in the afternoon the doctors, by wireless telegram, informed his family at home of his condition, and asked them to meet the boat. Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Halford, ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... home comforts; but, then, she has no heavy duties to perform, no housework, bed-making, sweeping, dish-washing, or clothes-washing, and when her work is done, she is her own mistress. She goes and comes at her own will; she has time for self-improvement, but best of all she has something to look forward to. That is a great advantage over girls of other occupations, who have such a ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... chance. You make a mistake, I tell you. There's lots of good folks in this town, lots of 'em. Cap'n Elisha Warren's one of 'em and there's plenty more. They're countrymen, same as I am, but they're good, plain, sensible folks, and they'd like to like you if they had a chance. You belong to the Town Improvement Society, but you never go to a meeting. You ought to ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... on at the bureau of science taught us the best methods of combating this type of dysentery, and the proper disposal of human feces, the regulation of methods used in fertilizing vegetables, improvement in supplies of drinking water, and other simple, hygienic measures have reduced the deaths from it among Americans to an almost negligible minimum. Such cases as occur are almost without exception detected early, and readily yield ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... others in a general way and the drift of his discourses on manners and conversation had a nearer application than he intended I should discover, though he hoped I would profit by them. I was always grateful to anyone who took an interest in my improvement, so I laughingly told him, one day, that he need not make his criticisms any longer in that roundabout way, but might take me squarely in hand and polish me up as speedily as possible. Sitting in the saloon at night after a game of chess, in which, perchance, I had been the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... abandoned banana plantation and a doctor was brought to his bedside. He was delirious by the time this doctor arrived, and his ravings through the night were a source of vague worry to his enemy. On the second day the sick man showed signs of improvement. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... should be collective; that is, that all the work in the Department of Charities and Corrections from whatever source should be installed together; the same to be true of general betterment movements, hygiene, municipal improvement, etc. This plan precluded the installation of the State's exhibit in this department in one place with a dignified installation, as in the other exhibit departments, and made necessary the placing of the exhibit in several different parts of the ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... institution manifests a threefold improvement over the world at large, corresponding to these three motives. In consequence of the first, the companionship, the personal intercourse, the social bearing, are of a marked and very superior character. There may possibly to some minds, long accustomed to other ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... which the Kalendar has found, encouraging the Bookseller to adventure upon a Ninth Impression, I could not refuse his Request of my Revising, and Giving it the best Improvement I was capable, to an Inexhaustible Subject, as it regards a Part of Horticulture; and offer some little Aid to such as love a Diversion so Innocent and Laudable. There are those of late, who have arrogated, and given the Glorious Title ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... the legislation relating to this subject and enacted by Parliament in 1954, to consider its efficacy, and, if possible, to make recommendations for its improvement, and ...
— Report of the Juvenile Delinquency Committee • Ronald Macmillan Algie
... amusements, and had him well nursed, but that he feared being dismissed if he showed too much indulgence at once; and that then Louis would be allowed to relapse into his former state. Perhaps it was better for the boy that the improvement in his condition took place gradually; for it might have overpowered him to have had people about him, taking care of him all day, after so many months ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... And this improvement is, to turn The things which God has given To their best purpose, as we learn To make the place where we sojourn Homelike and more ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard |
