"Labour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exclaimed JONES; and he walked to his suburban villa. But the place was locked up, and the servants did not dare to open the door to him, as they had finished their legal spell of labour hours before. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... continue to exist without the vast sums which Christians of wealth so generously contributed? What was to happen, even to the churches of all denominations in England itself, if they accepted the preposterous doctrine that a man could not enjoy the fruit of his own labour, or inherit that of his ancestors, and at the same time remain a Christian? It was totally out of the question, far beyond the bounds of all practical common sense, and therefore it could not be Christian, since, if such a doctrine were true, ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... to the sea it was singing its melancholy song, the song that it has sung from its birth, and it paused neither to hear nor to answer me. Ever rolling, ever breaking, ever weeping, it continued its indifferent labour. I walked along its far-stretching sands, leaving footprints which it immediately effaced. I clambered upon its cliffs and sat looking out to sea for days, my eyes shining like lighthouse fires. But the sea revealed not itself to me. Or perhaps it had no self to reveal. And I could not reveal ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... certain place there lived a Brahman named Haridatta. He was a farmer, but poor was the return his labour brought him. One day, at the end of the hot hours, the Brahman, overcome by the heat, lay down under the shadow of a tree to have a doze. Suddenly he saw a great hooded snake creeping out of an ant-hill near at hand. So he thought ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... leisure go wandering whither it pleased them; but, after awhile, the lost senses returning to her wretched body, in company with tears and lamentations, she called long upon her children and went a great while seeking them in every cavern. At last, finding all her labour in vain and seeing the night coming on, she began, hoping and knowing not what, to be careful for herself and departing the sea-shore, returned to the cavern where she was wont ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... working men in Great Bradley who spoke bitterly of the owner's preference for foreign labour, and it was a fact that the men engaged in the electrical works were without exception of foreign origin. They had their quarters and lived peacefully apart, neither offering nor desiring the confidence of their fellow-townsmen. They were, in fact, frugal people of the Latin race ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... extensively employed; for, by a curious piece of reasoning, the foreign sculptor, no matter how limited his capacity, was held to be far more competent to restore antiquities than the English artist of whatever reputation. It was, doubtless, in consequence of this demand for foreign labour, and the liberal manner in which its exertions were recognised and requited, that Louis Francis Roubiliac found his ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... His picture was going splendidly, and every morning he woke to the knowledge that his image filled all the thoughts of a good little girl with gray dark charming eyes and a face that reminded one of a pretty kitten. Her drawing was not half bad either. He was spared the mortifying labour of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. In one of his arts as in the other he decided that she had talent. And it was pleasant that to him should have fallen the task of teacher in both departments. Those ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... presence of vast numbers of slaves, not members of households, but the gangs of toilers whom the increase of commerce brought into the country, pandered to a foolish pride that looked upon many kinds of honourable labour as being shameful and unbecoming to a free man. The very institution that made Greek civilisation possible encouraged idleness, luxury, and still worse vices. Unnatural vice, which in some States seems to have been positively encouraged, was prevalent among the Greeks to an almost incredible ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... been heavy with labour and sorrow; I should faint if I did not see The day that is ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... did, on foot every Sunday after a toilsome week, through all weathers, to the church, which often lay at a distance from their homes. They usually received so little in payment for their performances that their efforts were really a labour of love. In the parish I had in my mind when writing the present tale, the gratuities received yearly by the musicians at Christmas were somewhat as follows: From the manor-house ten shillings and a supper; from the vicar ten shillings; from the farmers five shillings each; ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... a translation of part of St John's Gospel into English, "for the benefit of the Church," and was working at "Some collections out of the 'Book of Notes' of Bishop Isodorus, saying, 'I will not have my pupils read a falsehood, nor labour therein without profit after my death.'" As the time went on his difficulty of breathing increased, and last symptoms began to appear; but he dictated cheerfully, anxious to do all that he could. On the Wednesday he ordered them to write with all speed ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... before, but his resistance had chafed her, and gradually she felt it an injustice and cruelty, and her love and respect withered away, till she regarded him as an obstacle. And when she had spent her labour on the voyage, and obtained recognition from her father—behold! Alured's existence deprived her of the prize almost ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... citadel and bulwarks after the goodliest fashion and, donning their richest attire, passed their time in feasting and sporting and making merry, till the days of the Queen's pregnancy were accomplished and she was taken, one night, with labour pains hard before dawn. Then the King bade summon all the Olema and astronomers, mathematicians and men of learning, astrologers, scientists and scribes in the city, and they assembled and sat awaiting the throwing of a bead into the cup[FN376] which was to be the signal to the Astrophils, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... things I ever knew him to do in his life. He asked me to bring him his history of Napoleon—it had been packed into their luggage by mistake—and deliberately laid it on the heart of the fire! I cried out and leaned forward to snatch it—to think of the labour it represented!—but he put his hand on ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... hours, they had crossed the western hemisphere. "Mars is getting very old, her seas are diminishing, and her continents are increasing. Those canals are the remains of gulfs and straits which have been widened and deepened and lengthened by human, or I should say Martian, labour, partly, I've no doubt, for purposes of navigation and partly to keep the inhabitants of the interior of the continents within measurable distance of the sea. There's not the slightest doubt about that. Then, ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... a field; it conceives to the passion, 75 the pang, of his joy. In a field was Dione in labour delivered of Cupid the Boy; And the field in its fostering lap from her travail received him: he drew Mother's milk from the delicate kisses of flowers; and he prosper'd and grew— Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... pastoral pieces, not without a touch of poetry, I thought, and instinct with the brave independence of the poorer class in France. There you might read how the wood-cutter gloried in his axe, and the gardener scorned to be ashamed of his spade. It was not very well written, this poetry of labour, but the pluck of the sentiment redeemed what was weak or wordy in the expression. The martial and the patriotic pieces, on the other hand, were tearful, womanish productions one and all. The poet had passed under the Caudine Forks; he sang for an army visiting ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... amazed at the things I used to do. Why, once I actually voted against a candidate who stood for the reform of the House of Lords. Seems incredible. This war is changing my ideas. (Suddenly, after a slight pause.) I'm dashed if I don't join the Labour party and ask Ramsay ...
— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett
... generous provision you will admit! And yet he taunted me with having received a thousand. This was mere guesswork, of course, and I took no notice of his taunts: did the brains that conceived the business deserve no payment? Was my labour to be counted as dross?—the humiliation, the blows which I had to endure while he sat in hoggish content, eating and sleeping without thought for the morrow? After which he calmly pocketed the twenty francs to earn which he had not raised one ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... point with pride to the fact that they very soon pulled themselves together. I hope to show in the following chapter that by the time the war was in full swing they had made it their own, and had banished every trace of socialism, with the relics of sanity and truth, to the confines of the Labour press.[31] ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... unconcernedly with the rest. It was the gallant sergeant, who had come haymaking for pleasure; and nobody could deny that he was doing the mistress of the farm real knight-service by this voluntary contribution of his labour at a busy time. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... packing of sardines. A sound system of fair trade based upon a tariff scientifically adjusted to the conditions of the Island should develop the industry rapidly. Everything lends itself to this: the skilled labour could be imparted from home, the sardines from France, and the tin and oil from Spain. It would need for some years an export Bounty somewhat in the nature of Protection, the scale of which would have to be regulated ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... shaken to its deepest foundations. It was bad enough, from the point of view of potential matrimony, to earn money, even if one had the right to prefix "Don" to one's baptismal name. But to be no Don and to receive coin for one's labour was a far more insurmountable barrier against intermarriage with the patriarchs than hereditary madness, toothless old age, leprosy, or lack ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... A. D. 1830, one year before I was born, that the old Norse life has been changed in Orkney. Up to that date agriculture could hardly be said to exist. The sheep and cattle of all towns, or communities, grazed together; but this plan, though it saved the labour of herding, was at the cost of abandoning the lambs to the eagles who circled over the flocks and selected their victims at will. In the late autumn all stock was brought to the "infield," which was ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... suddenly loosened, and the crew succeeded, after a few hours' hard labour, in warping the Dolphin once more out of the pack; but scarcely had this been accomplished when another storm, which had been gradually gathering, burst upon them, and compelled them once more to seek the shelter ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... or can the best of us: That little is achieved through Liberty. Who then dares hold—emancipated thus— His fellow shall continue bound? Not I Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss A brother's right to ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... make a tour of America. For when the German workingmen see how much better off the Americans are, they will return to Germany and demand shorter hours and higher wages; and the American will not be brought into competition with labour slaves such as the German workingmen of the period before ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... lay stress upon the 'slow multiplication and dissemination of MSS.' Perhaps he may somewhat exaggerate this, as antiquarians give us a surprising account of the case and rapidity with which books were produced by the aid of slave-labour [Endnote 235:1]. But even at Rome the publishing trade upon this large scale was a novelty dating back no further than to Atticus, the friend of Cicero, and we should naturally expect that among the Christians—a poor and widely scattered ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... uncontrollable rage. I was tempted to fling myself against the door, to shout, to roar until some one should come to release me. Then as suddenly came over me the miserable certainty that I was helpless, and that anything I did would be but labour lost, and injure no one but myself. And, Smith, too! It was all up with our precious secret parleys; perhaps we should not even be allowed to see one another any more. In my misery I sat down on the floor in a corner of my dungeon and felt ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... men rushed into the corn fields, and in a short time made a clean sweep of several acres. Whether or not it was a wise proceeding, I think, is doubtful, for it was too probable that the natives would either kill their prisoners in revenge, or else make them labour as slaves to repay them for the damage they had received. This work being accomplished, the frigates got under weigh, the Captains intending to call off a place farther to the north where the Malay chief of the island resided, for the purpose ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... cannot conceive that your present will have its desired effect, or that the sultan will look upon me with a favourable eye; I am sure, that if I attempt to deliver your strange message, I shall have no power to open my mouth; therefore I shall not only lose my labour, but the present, which you say is so invaluable, and shall return home again in confusion, to tell you that your hopes are frustrated. I have represented the consequence, and you ought to believe me; but," added she, "I will exert my best endeavour ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... occupied their cabins. Captain Westerway had wished to obtain another first mate in the place of Bill Windy, but he had been unsuccessful. The second mate was a young man, and though a fair sailor, was not as trustworthy a navigator as the captain desired; thus, consequently, throwing more labour and responsibility on him. Once more the sails were loosed, the anchor hove up, and the "Crusader" stood out of Simon's Bay, the captain hoping to get a good offing before nightfall. Sail after sail was loosed; and close-hauled, with the wind to the westward, she glided swiftly over the blue sea. ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... snow. The fields themselves had an unwonted, a haggard sort of look. A crop of oats was ripening in that nearest the close, but they covered only the half of it: the rest was in potatoes, and amongst them, sole show of labour or life, he saw Aggie: she was pulling the PLUMS off their stems. The doors were shut all round the close—all but the kitchen-door; that stood as usual wide open. A sickening fear came upon Cosmo: it was more than a week since he had heard from home! In that time his father ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... absurdities have beene entertained by generall consent. I might instance in many remarkeable examples, but I will onely speake of the supposed labour of the Moone in her eclipses, because this is neerest to the chiefe matter in hand, and was received as a common opinion amongst many of the ancients, and therefore Plutarch speaking of a Lunary eclipse, relates, that at such times 'twas a custome amongst ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... estate was a little farm in the country, which Susanna would rent, and cultivate, and make profitable by her own industry and her own management. She planted potatoes; she milked cows and made butter; she sowed, she reaped; and the labour was to her a delight; for there, upon the soft grass, under the green, waving tree, sate the little Hulda, and played with flowers, and her blue eyes beamed with happiness, and no care and no ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... in all other European capitals put together. From not reading in our newspapers, as we do in yours, of the robberies, murders, and frauds discovered and punished, you may, perhaps, be inclined to suppose my assertion erroneous or exaggerated; but it is the policy of our present Government to labour as much as possible in the dark; that is to say, to prevent, where it can be done, all publicity of anything directly or indirectly tending to inculpate it of oppression, tyranny, or even negligence; and to conceal the immorality of the people so nearly ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... With much additional labour, the principles contained in the Institutes of English Grammar, have here been not only reaffirmed and rewritten, but occasionally improved in expression, or amplified in their details. New topics, new definitions, new rules, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Soviet Russia on May 11th and recrossed the frontier on June 16th. The Russian authorities only admitted me on the express condition that I should travel with the British Labour Delegation, a condition with which I was naturally very willing to comply, and which that Delegation kindly allowed me to fulfil. We were conveyed from the frontier to Petrograd, as well as on subsequent journeys, in a special train de ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... lang, an' snaws were deep, An' threaten'd labour back to keep, I gied thy cog a wee bit heap [dish] Aboon the timmer; [edges] I kenn'd my Maggie wad na sleep ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... added the labour of a porter to my fasting endured for the sake of books. At the little shop near Portland Road Station I came upon a first edition of Gibbon, the price an absurdity—I think it was a shilling a volume. To possess those clean-paged quartos I would have sold my ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... unrivaled capabilities of this region. So vast are our colonial territories, that for every class in our huge framework of society we have separate and characteristic attractions. In some it is chiefly labour that is wanted, capital being in excess. In others these proportions are reversed. In some it is great capitalists that are wanted for the present; in others almost exclusively small ones. Now, in Ceylon, either class ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... sister kingdoms. The work of conquest had been continued by Ireton, and completed after his death by General Ludlow, as mercilessly as it had begun. Thousands perished by famine or the sword. Shipload after shipload of those who surrendered were sent over sea for sale into forced labour in Jamaica and the West Indies. More than forty thousand of the beaten Catholics were permitted to enlist for foreign service, and found a refuge in exile under the banners of France and Spain. The work of settlement, which was undertaken by Henry Cromwell, the younger and ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... after the sale of the stock, more than a hundred and fifty pounds. For herself, she believed she must go into service—which would hurt her pride more than it would alter her position, for her hands had done far more of the necessary labour than those of the maid who assisted her. Indeed, in her proudest mood, she would have welcomed death rather than idleness. What was to become of Annie ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... With much labour, they had at last ranged the most important pieces on some trestle tables and in the cupboards of the room. A number of smaller boxes and packages still remained to be looked through. Faversham, by Melrose's directions, had written to a London firm of ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... he is stout; but 'tis indeed only because he is a Parson, and sullen, which he thinks wise, for he cannot endure that Copyhold should be touch'd, as you may see more plainly a little further, where he says in Loves Labour Lost, the Curate plays the fool egregiously; and so does the Poet too: there he clenches the Nail, there he gives Shakespear a bold stroke, there obstinacy and malice appear in true colours: And yet if a parcel of the ones Plays, were set up by way of Auction against t'others Sermons ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... surrounded him, or courage enough to fight for the unholy wealth he has amassed: this man I say is contemptible. Such creatures are as noxious vermin, whom one loathes, and loathing them destroys. You no less destroy the tiger, who ravages the green fields which your labour has adorned; who laps the blood of your flocks, and threatens the life of your children and servants, but you do not despise the tiger; you keep his hide, as a monument of your victory over a brave and powerful enemy. Cathelineau ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... histories, their names are o'er; The plow insults their sires' indignant bones; The very land disowns its look of yore; Vast cities rise, and hark! I hear the tones Of many mingling Tongues; and boundless labour groans. ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... about any. Yes, my friend, you too, you too have I wronged. You now know me pretty well, and I entreat your forgiveness. I have oftentimes thought in secret, without however feeling the least anger against you: 'Well, he is taking beforehand what he has richly earned, by labour, by sleepless nights, by diligence of every kind ... he cannot know for certain whether death may not snatch me away suddenly ... peradventure he has some poor relations ... he may wish to marry ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... be no harm in such a division of labour, the inventors doing the work and the professors the talking. The experts may themselves be inexpert in verbal expression, or content with stock phrases, or profoundly sceptical, or too busy to think. Nevertheless, skill and understanding are at their best when they go together ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... is the most primitive of female accomplishments, and can be traced back to the earliest times. Ballad poetry and fairy tales are full of allusions to it. The term 'spinster' still testifies to its having been the ordinary employment of the English young woman. It was the labour assigned to the ejected nuns by the rough earl who said, 'Go spin, ye jades, go spin.' It was the employment at which Roman matrons and Grecian princesses presided amongst their handmaids. Heathen mythology ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... that, on the other hand, if there be anything in the whole circle of literature that requires more than ordinary care and attention, it is undoubtedly this. At least, if a man would wish, as Thucydides says, to labour for posterity. I very well know that I cannot attack so many without rendering myself obnoxious to some, especially those whose histories are already finished and made public; even if what I say should be approved by them, it would be madness to expect that they should retract ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... acquire those things that may be most beneficial unto them. And then thy people shall be obedient unto thee, to aid and succour thee, and in all things to accomplish thy commandments, like as thy ministers labour every one in his office to acquire and get that thing that thy heart desireth: and as thy heart is of no force, and impotent, without the aid of thy members, so without thy people thy reign is nothing. My son, thou shalt fear and dread ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... brink, as the shadows darkened, he found the fresh scent of a female vole. He followed it eagerly, through shallow and whirlpool and stream, to a spit of sand among some boulders, where he met, not the reward of his labour and longing, but a jealous admirer of the dainty lady he had sought to woo. After the manner of their kind in such affairs, the rivals ruffled with rage, kicked and squealed as if to declare their reckless bravery, and closed ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... through the intercession of papa who thinks she will now-become a respectable character. The man who was taken, was doubtless more guilty than could be proved, however he was found sufficiently so, to be sent to hard labour for three months in the neighbouring Penitentiary. He proved to be the identical Jamie Reece, who was said to have been spirited away by the ghost, but who, in fact, joined the gang which had just lost ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... any subject he was called upon to design, but also that his genius should be left unfettered and untrammelled in his method of treatment. Hence it was that he found it impossible to co-operate with so exacting an employer of artistic labour as Charles Dickens. The latter argued, with some show of reason, that knowing what he intended to describe, he was the fittest and most competent person to explain how his meaning should be pictorially carried out. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... work, but would refuse to say where. It certainly was a joke, his going to work; not that his grandfather had not often and strenuously recommended it, saying that the boy would never know happiness until he shook hands with labour; not that he himself had not fully intended some day to go into the training necessary to the assuming of the cares incident to the handling of a great fortune. But thus far—well, he had never been ready to begin. One journey more, one ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... should promise to pay tribute to him. In this he was successful. He then demanded a site on which to erect a fortress to be garrisoned by a Portuguese force. The foundations of this fortress were marked out on October 24, 1507, and the building was undertaken by native labour under Portuguese superintendence. Meanwhile, the disgust of {55} the Portuguese captains increased; they protested against the conduct of Albuquerque, and spoke openly of leaving him and going by themselves to India. In consequence of this conduct Albuquerque suspended Francisco de Tavora ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... baptized in the course of a year, and these principally children. Of converts properly so called, that is, of adults voluntarily embracing Christianity, the number is extremely small. "Notwithstanding the labour of missionaries for upwards of two hundred years, and the establishments of different Christian nations who support them, there are not twelve thousand Indian Christians, and those almost entirely outcasts." (Sketches relating to the history, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... of my year's labour if I leave now!' returned the youth, greatly hurt. 'Could you ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... free from poison: they are fond of the water, in which they take shelter on being pursued. The mosquitoes, gnats, and prickly pear, our three persecutors, still continue with us, and joined with the labour of working the canoes have fatigued us all excessively. Captain Clarke continued along the Indian road which led him up a creek. About ten o'clock he saw at the distance of six miles a horse feeding in the plains. He went ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... roughly that they did not care anything at all about the matter, for, as I before said, the Sakais from habit and an innate spirit of independence will never hear of submitting themselves to any regular, ordinate labour. Knowing, however, with whom I had to deal, and divining what a great amount of patience would be necessary to bring them round to my way of thinking, I began to distribute gifts, especially tobacco, freely and frequently amongst them, only mentioning ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... her fears. Thus they parted, and she went homeward, journeymen now being in the street, waggoners going to the harness-makers for articles left to be repaired, farm-horses going to the shoeing-smiths, and the sons of labour showing themselves generally on the move. Elizabeth entered her lodging unhappily, thinking she had done no good, and only made herself appear foolish by her ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... undertook to write an English Dictionary, I had no expectation of any higher patronage than that of the proprietors of the copy, nor prospect of any other advantage than the price of my labour. I knew that the work in which I engaged is generally considered as drudgery for the blind, as the proper toil of artless industry; a task that requires neither the light of learning, nor the activity ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... He therefore indulged his natural disposition, and his disposition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him to comedy. In tragedy he often writes, with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but in his comick scenes, he seems to produce without labour what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always struggling after some occasion to be comick; but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick scenes there is always something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expectation ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... to be unreasonable. Once, however, they have bestowed their friendship, their trust is absolute, and their affection most faithful. They become one's companions in hours of solitude, sadness, and labour. A cat will stay on your knees a whole evening, purring away, happy in your company and careless of that of its own species. In vain do mewings sound on the roofs, inviting it to one of the cat parties where red herring brine takes the place of tea; it is not to be tempted and spends the ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... praise; were it not for this fear I would at once pronounce him the most God-like mortal I ever viewed. They were two months from the time the accident happened until they reached this place. Every man shared alike in the labour; and not having at all attended to their persons during the whole of that dismal period they looked like men of another world—long beards, dirt, and rags covered them. Mr. Riou got one of his hands crushed and one of his legs hurt, but all are getting well. None of his people died ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke
... time and order, will come to the crown with the same content of their choice with which His Majesty had succeeded to that he wears," it is saying too much even to the humblest individual in the country; part of whose daily labour goes towards making up the million sterling a-year, which the country gives the person it styles a king. Government with insolence is despotism; but when contempt is added it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... on whom devolved at this time the greatest part of the labour of governing was Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the realm, who was soon created Earl of Clarendon. The respect which we justly feel for Clarendon as a writer must not blind us to the faults which he committed as a statesman. Some of those faults, however, are explained and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... or in alehouses or elsewhere, tending to the abetting the common excess." Another Lancashire Monthly Meeting, Penketh, under date "18th 8th mo. 1691" suggested that Friends were "not to smoke during their labour or occupation, but to leave their work and take it privately"—a suggestion which clearly proceeded from non-smokers. The smug propriety of these recommendations to enjoy a ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... Mr. Howard Pyle said: "I sometimes think that we are upon the edge of some new era in which the art of beautifying books with pictures shall suddenly be uplifted into a higher and a different plane of excellence; when ornate printed colour and perfect reproduction shall truly depict the labour of the patient draughtsman who strives so earnestly to beautify the world in which he lives, and to lend a grace to the living therein." The prophecy is already fulfilled, and a modern book, in order to win favor among present-day bibliophiles, must ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... thousand feet of the needful height, cannot claim this distinction. But what Nature has denied, human labour has supplied. Under the direction of the Adirondack Survey, some years ago, several acres of trees were cut from the summit; and when we emerged, after the last sharp scramble, upon the very crest of the mountain, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... sickness and death, and that the Commissariat, having no longer any sufficient means of conveyance at its command, cannot bring up the daily supplies without their assistance, thereby adding, however inevitably, to their labour and fatigue. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... and believing his word, 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.' 'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' Come now and accept his offered salvation, whether you have done so before or not; come, believing his word; 'I will in no wise cast out,' 'I have ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... these days of advanced education, that we are educating young people beyond the station they can possibly attain, and that we may find the cleverness expend itself in forging other people's names and signatures to obtain money without that honest labour by which their parents were content to earn a livelihood. The evidence, however, is altogether the other way. The number of forgeries committed before national education began, notwithstanding the fear of being hung for the ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... card-playing, and addicted himself to it with such earnestness that he neglected his business and squandered his money. Want was what of all things he hated, except work, and therefore rather than labour to retrieve, he bethought himself of an easier way of getting money, and that ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Castellamare, imprudently married before he is out of his teens and with an ever-increasing family. It is so easy to accept the proffered gold, which will keep wife and babies in comparative comfort throughout the long hot summer; unskilled labour is paid so lightly on these teeming shores of the Terra di Lavoro; saddled already with children he cannot make up his feeble mind to emigrate; in short, to go a-coralling is his sole chance, if he wishes to keep his home together ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... running for him. For this indisposition to go freely forward results as well from their seeing no necessity to give up their will to yours, as from their incapacity to perceive and obey the indications of their rider without swerving, shifting the leg, &c., and additional labour to themselves. All this is spared to the young horse by the ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... be "hauled" nor "gated" for setting them at defiance. Towards the end of his first term he begins to realise more accurately the joys and privileges of University life, he has formed his set, and more or less found his level, he has become a connoisseur of cheap wine, he has with pain and labour learned to smoke, he has certainly exceeded his allowance, and he returns to his home with the firm conviction that he knows a great deal of life. He will terrify his mother with tales of proctorial misadventures, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... be the first to commence that act of inconceivable boldness and energy," said Nathanael, with a good-humoured persuasive smile. "Let me, being likewise a younger son, take a leaf out of Uncle Brian's book, and try to labour, as he once did, in my own county, with the honour of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... curious thing that I who lacked all ability to become "comme il faut," should have assimilated the idea so completely as I did. Possibly it was the fact that it had cost me such enormous labour to acquire that brought about its strenuous development in my mind. I hardly like to think how much of the best and most valuable time of my first sixteen years of existence I wasted upon its acquisition. Yet every one ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... are the inner cells; they cohere more tenaciously and a rudimentary skin is formed. Through the pores of this skin food is absorbed, and in these food-absorbing pores is foreshadowed the mouth. Division of labour has set in, and groups of cells specialise in the performance of functions. Thus, a cell group forms the skinny covering of the cluster, another cell group the mouth. And likewise, internally, the stomach, a sac for the reception and digestion ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... themselves regarded. No one among them all, however, felt this envy and malice more stirring within him, than did the arch-apostate James Sharp; for the faithfulness of so many ministers was a terror and a reproach to his conscience and apostacy, and made him labour with an exceeding zeal and animosity to extirpate so many evidences of his own religious guilt. Accordingly, by his malignant counsellings, edicts and decrees came out against our tabernacle in the wilderness, and under the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... see, my dear, at the last General Election I took a somewhat prominent part in denouncing the Conservatives for employing Chinese labour in the South African mines. It would be very awkward if people at Gablehurst found out that our entire income ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... with auxiliary steam was followed. Beyond this no work was definitely assigned to any individual on board. How the custom of the ship arose I do not know, but in effect most things were done by volunteer labour. It was recognized that every one whose work allowed turned to immediately on any job which was wanted, but it was an absolutely voluntary duty—Volunteers to shorten sail? To coal? To shift cargo? To pump? To paint or wash down paintwork? ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... theatre-goer, than he is now. It is true that from Betterton's days to Garrick's, and later, his plays were commonly acted from mangled versions. But these versions were of two distinct types. The one respected the rules of the classical drama, the other indulged the license of pantomime. The one was the labour of the pedant theorist, the other was rather the improvisation of the theatre manager. And if the former were truly representative of the taste of the century, as has sometimes been implied, it has to be explained how they were not so popular as the latter. "Our ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... place might be seriously annoyed by musketry from the adjacent hills, still the sides of those hills are so rocky and precipitous that cannon could not be brought to bear from the summit without immense labour. ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... be to support his own wife by his own labour. At present he was hardly in a fair way to do that, unless he could get paid for his parliamentary work. Those fortunate gentlemen who form "The Government" are so paid. Yes;—there was the Treasury Bench open to him, and he must resolve that he would seat himself there. He would make ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... next occupied the witness's chair, admitted, in reply to the questions of Sir Gladney Jebb, that, since his student days, he had seldom been engaged in manual labour on any instrument for more than two hours a day. It was not necessary for a conductor. But he knew of pianists who practised for six or even eight hours ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... observation, that wherever you see a flower in a cottage garden, or a bird-cage at the window, you may feel sure that the cottagers are better and wiser than their neighbours; and such humble tokens of attention to something beyond the sterile labour of life, were (we must now revert to the past,) to be remarked in almost every one of the lowly abodes at Grassdale. The jasmine here, there the vine clustered over the threshold, not so wildly ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... provocation, even the humiliations of personal violence he had borne with superhuman patience; but this last injury, this wantonly cruel outrage, this deliberate destruction of an amount of thought, and labour, and suffering which only the writer himself ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... but I could not sleep. My mind was active, though I found to my surprise that it was more nearly calm than it had been for days. I knew that I ought to sleep, but I seemed on track of discovery. It had taken me hours of unremitting labour to get where I was,—monotonous but interesting labour—and it would likely take me hours more to ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... his—that such an empire is his at all.... Heavier wrong is not done under the sun. It lasts from year to year, from century to century; the blinded sire slaves himself out, and leaves a blinded son; and men, made in the image of God, continue as two-legged beasts of labour: and in the largest empire of the world it is a debate whether a small fraction of the revenue of one day shall, after thirteen centuries, be laid out on it, or not laid out on it. Have we governors? Have we teachers? Have we had a Church these thirteen hundred years? What is an overseer ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... college of all training camps. Here ten thousand men come every week from other training camps all over the earth, and are given intensive training. For six days, eighteen and twenty hours a day, these soldiers, trained by many months' labour on other fields, are given the Ph.D. in battle lore, and are turned out the seventh day after a Saturday night lecture on hate, and shot straight up to the front. In all France there is no more grisly place for the weak-stomached man than this training camp—not even the ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... it right or wrong, these men among, on women do complain, Affirming this, how that it is a labour spent in vain To love them well; for never a del they love a man again; For let a man do what he can their favour to attain, Yet if a new to them pursue their first true lover than Laboureth for nought and from her thought he is a ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... progresses under Aunt Celia's very nose. I say 'progresses'; but it is impossible to speak with any certainty of courting, for the essence of that gentle craft is hope, rooted in labour and ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... convent, rich in the massy walls and smoke of former days, and in the stoves and hot closets of the present. The general's improving hand had not loitered here: every modern invention to facilitate the labour of the cooks had been adopted within this, their spacious theatre; and, when the genius of others had failed, his own had often produced the perfection wanted. His endowments of this spot alone ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... all modifications of earth and water. Recluses living in the wilderness, giving up all longing (for rich and savoury food), take simple food, that is again unsavoury, for only supporting the body. After the same manner, a person that dwells in the wilderness of the world, should be ready for labour and should take food for passing through life, like a patient taking medicine.[732] A person of noble soul, examining all things of an earthly nature that come upon him, by the aid of truth, purity, candour, a spirit of renunciation, enlightenment, courage, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and absurd convention I have to restore the old home to the ground landlord in 1941. But who cares about what is going to happen in 1941? The Coalition may have come to an end by that time, and the first Labour Government, under Lord NORTHCLIFFE or Mr. JACK JONES, may be in power. Some bricklayer, in a mood of artistic frenzy, may have designed the plan of a new brick and had it passed by the Ministry of Housing. DEMPSEY may have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... colleges "nowe late fownded and newe growyng" "were sufficiently supplied with books for divine service and for their libraries and studies, or with vestments and ornaments, whiche thinges may not be had withoute great and diligente labour be longe processe and right besy inquisicion.' They therefore begged that the king would order Chester to take to hym suche men as shall be seen to hym expedient and profitable, and in especial! John Pye,' the King's ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... we labour for, Freedom, it is our right; We have no wish for bloody war, But, if we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... for almost two months all the bread consumed by the burgher army was prepared by the Boer women. Organisations were formed for this purpose in every city and town in the country, and by means of a well-planned division of labour this improvised commissariat department was as effective as that which was afterward organised by the Government. Certain women baked the bread, prepared sandwiches, and boiled coffee; others procured the supplies, and others distributed the food at the various ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... of age, with a striking and expressive countenance, and much wit and aptitude for labour. He was remarkable for grace, fine manners, and winning ways; but his pride and ambition were excessive, and when his fits of ill-temper came, nothing could repress them. Resistance always excited and irritated him. He had accustomed the King—whenever he had drunk too much, or when a party of ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... part, young men from the cities, and this stranger's face was darkened by the sun. There was also an indefinite suggestion of strength in the pose of his lean, symmetrical figure, which, though she did not recognise that fact, could only have come from strenuous labour in the open air. She, however, noticed that while the average Englishman would have asked permission to help her, or have deprecated the offer, this stranger did nothing of the kind. He stood with the water frothing about his ankles, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... and dear,—the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates. Death, change, distance, lend them a character which makes them quite another thing from the vulgar, wearisome toil of uninteresting, forced manual labour. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana |
