"Mere" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reporters who were ravening outside must have spotted Rand as he had entered; they were all waiting for him to come out, and set up a monstrous ululation when he appeared in the doorway. With Farnsworth beaming approval, Rand assured the Press that he was no more than a mere spectator, that the State Police and the efficient District Attorney of Scott County had the situation well in hand, and that an arrest was expected within a matter of hours. Then he and Pierre hurried to ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... why should he not hope for it in the future world? He whispers into her dead ear his wish, and he puts a flower into her dead hand, thinking, "When she wakes up, in another life, she will see that flower, and remember what I said to her, and how much I loved her." That is the mere story. But we must understand that the greatness of the love expressed in the poem is awakened by an ideal of innocence and sweetness and goodness, and the affection is of the soul—that is to say, it is the love of beautiful ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... mystery. It was like a draught of wine to him who has been drinking water for so long that he has almost forgotten the stir wine brings to his blood, the narcotic to his brain. The flowers were coloured brighter, scents and music and the sunlight had a living value—were no longer mere reminders of past enjoyment. There was something now to live for which stirred him continually to anticipation. He lived in that, not in retrospection; the difference is considerable to any so old as he. The pleasures of the table, never of much consequence to one naturally abstemious, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... talking about. Never having seen an aeroplane in all his life, and having only a faint conception of the wonderful uses to which the fliers could be put, the tiller of the soil gasped many times when he heard these mere lads tell of their feelings when half a mile up ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... was now abandoned. The man-of-war's boat, when it came up, was received with a shot from Long Tom, which grazed its side, carried away four of the starboard oars, and just missed dashing it to pieces by a mere hair's-breadth. At the same time the sails of the schooner were shaken out and filled by the light breeze, which, for nearly an hour, had ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... as sure that "King Lear" has a plot. So, too, we say that "Robinson Crusoe" has little, almost no plot; that the plot is simple in "Treasure Island," and that "Les Miserables" has an intricate plot. A plot seems to demand more than a mere succession of events. Any arrangement of the parts of a narrative so that the reader's interest is aroused concerning the result of the series of events ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... first break of dawn, the fiend. Mere serpent in appearance, forth was come; And on his quest, where likeliest he might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purposed prey. In bower and field he sought where any tuft Of grove or garden-plot more ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... persisted the girl, "the outlook is improving, when you and I travel unmolested with a mere handful of men to guard us. Time was when a great and wealthy Archbishop might not stir abroad with less than a thousand men in ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... I once had a good friend who had foolishly given her heart to a handsome, high-spirited boy. She was a mere child and it was a very touching relationship: knightly devotion on his part and tender sighings on hers. Then the young heroine had the misfortune to become very jealous, and so far forgot poetry and deportment as to give her heart's chosen knight a box on the ear. It was only a little box, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... by surprise, for I seemed to have forgotten any other life than that I was then living; and dressing the most frightful wounds was as natural as eating. I felt no disgust, no shrinking, and mere conventional delicacy is withdrawn when the Angel of Death breathes ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... vice, which is now spreading like a subtle poison through all grades of society, that the present work is directed. The author is not a mere theorist. He speaks from experience—dark and bitter experience. The things he has seen he tells; the words he has heard he speaks again. Some of these scenes curdle the blood in the veins, even when remembered; some of these words, whenever whispered, recall incidents of singular ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... connoisseurs. Porcelain articles of this period are now extremely rare, and fetch enormous prices. In Japan I saw a small green Chinese bowl on three feet, with a cover, which had cost eleven hundred pounds. Compared to the Kang Hi vases, the finest porcelain that can be produced nowadays is mere rubbish. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... Edwards, re-established himself and educated his large family after his great financial reverses in the period of the Revolutionary war, but the story of Colonel William Edwards is even a more striking illustration of this same power. He was born at Elizabeth, New Jersey, November 11, 1770. He was a mere child during the Revolutionary struggle. Before he was two years old the father removed to Stockbridge, Mass., and the boy grew up in as thoroughly a rural community as could be found. The school ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... sin. Sin is, in fact, nothing else than this derangement or disturbance: it is that in which wrong is done to the moral constitution under which we live. And let no one say that in such an expression we are turning our back on the personal world, and lapsing, or incurring the risk of lapsing, into mere legalism again. It cannot be too often repeated that if the universal element, or law, be eliminated from personal relations, there is nothing intelligible left: no reason, no morality, no religion, no sin or ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... difficult enough in the case of individuals, becomes mere guess-work when the action under analysis is that of a large body of men. Which one of many considerations urged upon the Convention carried with it the supreme weight of persuasion in this particular instance it is impossible ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... which took place when he was about eighteen years old, was the result, under God, of the mere sight in midwinter, of a dry and leafless tree, and of the reflections it stirred respecting the change the coming spring would bring. From that time he grew eminently in the knowledge and love of GOD, endeavoring constantly ...
— The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life • Herman Nicholas
... the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, as a domestic horse to the hitching-post, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination—free, lawless, immune to bit and rein. Your novelist is a poor creature, as Carlyle might say—a mere reporter. He may invent his characters and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not occur, albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie. Why he imposes this hard condition ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... instruction, 'The battle fought in 1666.' There was of course more than one battle fought in 1666, but Herbert was only present in that of July 25th, the 'St. James's Fight,' represented in the manuscript—and it was his first action. But here again all is too vague for more than a mere guess. ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... themes of tragic interest, and at others on such as, from their light and social character, belong to comedy.10 Of the execution of these pieces we have now no means of judging. It was probably rude enough, as befitted an unformed people. But, whatever may have been the execution, the mere conception of such an amusement is a proof of refinement that honorably distinguishes the Peruvian from the other American races, whose pastime was war, or the ferocious sports that ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... passed us while we were at this camp, one coming from out of space, as it seemed, a mere speck, and growing to a full-fledged deep-sea vessel, with all sails set, scudding before the wind. The other two were gracefully beating their way out against the stiff breeze to the open waters beyond. What ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... The results, starting from an extremely low base, have been striking - growth averaged 7% in 1988-96. Because Laos depends heavily on its trade with Thailand, it fell victim to the financial crisis in the region in 1997, when growth was a mere 1.5%. Laos is a landlocked country with a primitive infrastructure. It has no railroads, a rudimentary road system, and limited external and internal telecommunications. Electricity is available in only a few urban areas. Subsistence agriculture accounts for half ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... when reared in a northern country, in the open air. Year after year it continued to degenerate, and to exhibit a smaller leaf and shorter stem, until the successors of what in the first year of trial had been rigorous plants, of some three to four feet in height, had in the sixth or eighth become mere weeds, of scarce as many inches. But while the as yet undegenerate plant had merely borne atop a few florets, which produced a small quantity of exceedingly minute seeds, the stunted weed, its descendant, was so thickly covered over in its season with its pale yellow bells, as to present ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... discourse Zarathustra opens his exposition of the doctrine of relativity in morality, and declares all morality to be a mere means to power. Needless to say that verses 9, 10, 11, and 12 refer to the Greeks, the Persians, the Jews, and the Germans respectively. In the penultimate verse he makes known his discovery concerning the root of modern Nihilism and indifference,—i.e., that modern man ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... used their immense leaves, some of which were twelve feet long and two and a half feet broad, to roof the flimsy shelters under which they hung their hammocks. I went into the woods, but in the tangle of vegetation it would have been a mere hazard had I seen any big animal. Generally the woods were silent and empty. Now and then little troops of birds of many kinds passed—wood-hewers, ant-thrushes, tanagers, flycatchers; as in the spring and fall similar troops of warblers, chickadees, and nuthatches ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... to ascribe their origin to so recent a date, but to derive it from a mere mechanic was more than our author's patience could endure. Accordingly he is not sparing of invective against those ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... organization of the Territory of Arizona in 1863, Arizona assumed jurisdiction over the slip, and built a prison there. Congress subsequently made a grant of land included in the slip to the "Village of Yuma," so that it is a mere question of jurisdiction, not involving the validity of any titles. The question of jurisdiction still remains unsettled, as it requires both an Act of Congress and Act of the State Legislature to change the ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... you why you deceived me, Lilian, but it was a low down trick to play on me, and it has turned out to be a damned cruel trick to play on that girl. I mentioned the engagement as a mere matter of course to somebody, and though I mentioned it confidentially, it started this slander about Malcolm Cromarty and Cicely Farmond conspiring to murder—to murder, Lilian!—the man of all men they owed most to. ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... Paul knew the weight of this article, and the necessity of teaching it, when he said, If Christ be not risen, our faith is vain. You see, then, that the thing which the apostles testified, and the thing for which they suffered, was the truth of the resurrection; which is a mere matter of fact. ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... that Phidias' statue must borrow gold from the sun, but since that is unproved, it is absurd to talk of a deficit. Moreover, gold cannot be borrowed from the sun. Therefore what Protagoras says is mere babble, and deserves no answer. On the other hand, will Phidias answer this question? 'When you have made Athene up there on the Parthenon, have ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... ineffectual, unless some will inform, and some will prosecute; but till we mitigate the penalties for mere violations of property, information will always be hated, and prosecution dreaded. The heart of a good man cannot but recoil at the thought of punishing a slight injury with death; especially when he remembers that the thief might have procured safety ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... exposition of an abstract conception. Philosophy has only herself to blame if abstractions are in the naif, ordinary mind opposed to realities, for it is unhappily true that nearly the whole of our current philosophy does consist of abstractions which are mere "Hirngespinnste," rooted in words and not in nature; philosophy itself has in art become a term of reproach from being associated with unreality. We must, however, distinguish between notions which are real but difficult to ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... an elastic stony axis, varying in length from eight inches to two feet. The stem at one extremity is truncate, but at the other is terminated by a vermiform fleshy appendage. The stony axis which gives strength to the stem may be traced at this extremity into a mere vessel filled with granular matter. At low water hundreds of these zoophytes might be seen, projecting like stubble, with the truncate end upwards, a few inches above the surface of the muddy sand. When touched or pulled they ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... mere effrontery of the replies. His father and his aunt (the latter of whom at any rate was a firm and confessed religionist, who had been responsible for converting Mr Clayhanger from Primitive Methodism to Wesleyan Methodism) did not trouble to ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... majority, he little by little made the prospective man of capital the creature of his directions; in something less than two more years Rodman looked to find ample recompense for his expenditure and trouble. But that was a mere parergon; to secure Richard Mutimer was the great end steadily ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Kennedy, his clean-cut features betraying an earnestness which I knew indicated that he was leading up to something important, "there is a distinct place for science in the detection of crime. On the Continent they are far in advance of us in that respect. We are mere children beside a dozen crime-specialists in Paris, whom ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... shore they had reached. They pushed off again, and resumed their hopeless search for the camp. A new trouble now harassed them. From seeming to have no shore at all, the lake now seemed to have shrunk to a mere mud puddle. No matter in what direction they rowed, they would strike the shore within ten minutes, and always at a different place. Joe said that he had never dreamed that so much shore and so little lake could ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... I know. I've known something of the family for a long time. John Wade employed me long ago. The old millionaire had a son who went abroad and died there. His cousin, John Wade, brought home his son—a mere baby—the old man's grandson, of course, and sole heir, or likely to be, to the old man's wealth, if he had lived. In that case, John Wade would have been left out in the cold, or put off ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... it would not be recalled—for the excellent reason that he really knew nothing about the matter. It was a relief at all events to find that he had actually been examined with the rest and had not been suspected. Nevertheless, he had undoubtedly done the deed, of which the mere thought made him tremble in every joint. Or was it all a part of his drunken dreams? No, that, at least, could not be explained away. For a long time he moved uneasily from his barricade at the door to the window, ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... there to prove it. The Revolutionists fought well on land. They invaded Canada and took the whole country except the walls of Quebec. They also fought well at sea; and Paul Jones, a Scotsman born, raided the coasts of Great Britain till nurses hushed children by the mere sound of ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... words to me. I am sure I never can sufficiently admire the mere courage of the woman and her presence of mind in danger. Immediately afterwards she said—and subsequently it seemed to me marvellous: "You are something more than the chorus to the play this ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... says, "the close intercourse between the habitues of the coffee house, before it lost anything of its generous social traditions and whilst the issue of the struggle for political liberty was as yet uncertain, was to lead to something more than a mere jumbling or huddling together of opposites. The diverse elements gradually united in the bonds of common sympathy, or were forcibly combined by persecution from without until there resulted a social, political and moral force ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... properties, had been transferred to her: it was the only wedding present he could make. And the wedding cheques had of course all been deposited in her name. There were therefore no "business" reasons for communicating with her; and when it came to reasons of another order the mere thought ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... of burning the store meant more to each of them than a mere gratification at seeing him humbled and perhaps punished. If they had been sure he would be convicted of the crime, doubtless they would have been happy indeed. The case meant so much to them that they attended the trial; and their discomfiture at the result—at seeing Fred ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... slavery or on any other subject be displeasing to a majority of the people, no human power can prevent them from changing it within a brief period. Under these circumstances it may well be questioned whether the peace and quiet of the whole country are not of greater importance than the mere temporary triumph of either of the political ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... is not true: for it was stated originally, that Happiness is a kind of Working; now Working plainly is something that must come into being, not be already there like a mere ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... master the proper methods, so as to be able later to make real use of the turns on steep slopes. Judges are therefore urged to insist that the stemming turns and Telemarks are done correctly and in good style. Each turn should be short, well defined, and not a mere ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... "is the silliest old ass who ever escaped petticoats by the mere accident of sex. I tell you he is just the sort of idiot the Germans have been longing to get hold of and twist round their fingers. Before twelve months or two years have passed, you'll curse the name of that ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... help us; but books cannot make us men of the nineteenth century, and a power in it. A thorough knowledge of the world within us, as it stands related to the world without us, is something quite different from mere book-knowledge. This is an element of influence not only not confined to the bookmen, but often possessed in a transcendent degree by those whose devotion to books is altogether subordinate to other avocations. Our common-school ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a question of my holding out for a mere theory, Alice," Rachael said after a while; "I'm not saying that I'm all in the right, and that I will never see Warren again until he admits it, and everyone admits it—that isn't what I want. But it's just that I'm dead, so far as that old feeling is concerned. It is as if a child ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... shining and invincible. Through all the fine, divaricating ways of the new life, it grew ever more evident, there were for every one certain persons, mysteriously and indescribably in the key of one's self, whose mere presence gave pleasure, whose mere existence was interest, whose idiosyncrasy blended with accident to make a completing and predominant harmony for their predestined lovers. They were the essential thing ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... nearer. Why, this was but a girl—nay, unless his instinct was at fault, a Jewish girl—a glorious young Jewess, of that radiant red-haired type which the Russian Pale occasionally flowered with. What was she doing with this Christian Colossus? He tried vainly to see her left hand; the mere possibility that she might be Mrs. Wilhammer shocked his Semitic instinct. Wilhammer disappeared within—the relation was obviously intimate—but the girl still stood at the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... mere infant Borrow was gloomy and fond of solitude, "ever conscious," he says, "of a peculiar heaviness within me, and at times of a strange sensation of fear, which occasionally amounted to horror, and for which I could ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... needed. The rate of exchange varied from place to place, and I was sometimes warned to put off visiting the money-changers until the next town. Of course the visitor stands to lose anyway, and I am sure that in the course of a long journey through China you would see your money vanish in the mere process of change, quite aside from ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... of the urine in parturition fever, but as a specific disease, associated with deranged liver or brain, it is practically unknown in cattle. As a mere attendant on another disease it demands ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... burst into tears and said, "Noble Achilles, if you are now minded to return, and in the fierceness of your anger will do nothing to save the ships from burning, how, my son, can I remain here without you? Your father Peleus bade me go with you when he sent you as a mere lad from Phthia to Agamemnon. You knew nothing neither of war nor of the arts whereby men make their mark in council, and he sent me with you to train you in all excellence of speech and action. Therefore, my son, I will not stay here without you—no, not ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... exceedingly pious, and extraordinarily zealous in praying. Their prayers, however, do not arise from the impulses and emotions of their hearts; but are subdued to mere matters of form, directed by bells, clocks or sun-dials. Their devotion is entirely mechanical, founded on external signs and old customs rather than ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... state-education by the inevitable claim of personal duty, like the Anglo-Saxons. Hence their need of a master, and the feeling of stability realized among them only under legitimacy and despotism. Shallow reasoners argue from the mere acknowledgment of this state of things that it is an ultimate public blessing when the man appears with wit and will enough to regulate and keep from chaos a society thus destitute of political training. But those who look deeper know that this political inefficiency is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Mere fancy's feints! How know the coffined what comes after them, Even though it whirl them to the Pleiades?— Turn to ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... shall not at once dismiss him, but leave it to himself to send in his resignation. Let him see if he will be able to reconcile himself to the new era, for a new era, I hope, is to dawn for Prussia—an era of toleration, enlightenment and true piety, that does not seek faction in mere lip-service and church-going, but in good and pious deeds. Religion is not an offspring of the church, but the reverse is true; the church is an offspring of religion, and the church therefore, ought to be subordinate to religion, and never try to place itself ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... of the fugitives returned on the following day, convinced that the prophet was a false one; but many judged it more prudent to allow a week to elapse before they trusted their dear limbs in London. Bell lost all credit in a short time, and was looked upon even by the most credulous as a mere madman. He tried some other prophecies, but nobody was deceived by them; and, in a few months afterwards, he was confined in a ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... daughter was increasing in beauty, the mother was increasing in poverty, and ran into debt on account of her daughter's virginity, as an alchemist will for the crucible in which his all is cast. As soon as his plans were arranged and perfect, one rainy day the said lord of Valennes by a mere chance came into the hovel of the two spinners, and in order to dry himself sent for some fagots to Plessis, close by. While waiting for them, he sat on a stool between the two poor women. By means of the grey shadows and half light of the cabin, he saw the sweet countenance of the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... in unravelling the mysteries; they were many and cunning, and thoroughly tried the first virtue of the Academical motto; still the sum of his finding with respect to the Prince was a mere theory—he was a Jew and rich—beyond this Demedes ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... good ear to his words; and as he ate his meat, he even tore it and rent it with his teeth, for mere vexation that his fat cattle should be slain to glut the appetites of those godless suitors. And he said, "What chief or what ruler is this, that thou commendest so highly, and sayest that he perished at Troy? I am but a stranger in these parts. It may be I have heard ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... thought he had made of the sacred record, I know not. The Greek text, rendered word for word, is simply this: "And his disciples hungered." And that the sentences above, taken either way, are not good English, must be obvious to every intelligent reader. An, as I apprehend, is here a mere prefix, which has somehow been mistaken in form, and erroneously disjoined from the following word. If so, the correction ought to be made after the fashion of the following passage from Bishop M'Ilvaine: "On a certain occasion, our Saviour was followed by five thousand men, into ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... will grow more used to the other boys, and gain more confidence in Fred. Things will right themselves, if we do not set them wrong. And now, mark me. You are not a mere child, who can plead the excuse of thoughtlessness for leading him into mischief; you know the greatness of the sin of disobedience, and the fearful responsibility incurred by conducing to it in others. Do not help to lead him astray for the ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wanted help from God more than she had ever in her life wanted it; and these evident signs of faith, of an established relation between earth and heaven, fell most gratefully upon her aching heart. The village of St. Mary's is a mere handful of houses, on a narrow stretch of sandy plain, lying between two forests of firs. Many years ago, hunters, finding in the depths of these forests springs of great medicinal value, made a little clearing about them, and built there ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... few words on the protest lately made by some naturalists against the utilitarian doctrine that every detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor. They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory—yet I fully admit that many structures are of no ...
— Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" - From 'The Natural History Review', 1864 • Thomas H. Huxley
... "Though more than mere suspicion has rested upon you," he went on, "you and your stepfather deserve the heartiest thanks of the nation for risking everything in order to be in a position to reveal this dastardly financial plot. That man there"—and he indicated the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... battle-cry,— Freedom! or leave to die!" Ah! and they meant the word,— Not as with us 'tis heard, Not a mere party shout: They gave their spirits out; Trusted the end to God, And on the gory sod Rolled in triumphant blood. Glad to strike one free blow, Whether for weal or woe; Glad to breathe one free breath, Though on the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... been months previous, and no one in the breakfast-room would have imagined that anything had occurred to disturb the relations between the two gentlemen. He inquired politely after the ladies, expressed regret that they were indisposed, and changed the subject in a tone and manner natural to a mere acquaintance. ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... order, signified to him that very morning: that he accordingly went thither, and dined with his uncle, in company with several other persons, to whom he related what had passed between the duke of Marlborough and him in the Park: that his being afterwards in Westminster Abbey was the effect of mere accident: that Mr. James Greenwood, his kinsman, who had lain that preceding night at his father's house, desired him to dress himself, that they might walk together in the Park; and he did not comply with his request till after much solicitation: that he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... and incomprehensible manner. This appears to me as if a man were to tear down a building from the sure foundation on which it had rested for 1000 years, and imagine it could rest in true stability only on the mere ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... one should have sufficed to kill her. But that blessed saint, like a valiant athlete, took fresh courage and strength from the confession of her faith; all feeling of pain vanished, and ease returned to her at the mere utterance of the words, 'I am a Christian, and no evil ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... away from before my eyes, and I saw below me an immense plain. But already, by the mere breath of the warm soft air upon my cheeks, I could tell I was not in Russia; and the plain, too, was not like our Russian plains. It was a vast dark expanse, apparently desert and not overgrown with grass; here and there over its whole extent gleamed pools of water, like broken pieces of looking-glass; ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... grown-up men and women in child shapes, and by the time their bodies have grown big they won't enjoy anything at all. Master Augustus will be a dull young man, who hates everybody, and does not know how to get through the long, dreary day; and Miss Ruby will be a mere heartless woman, who only cares to please herself, and does not mind how unhappy she makes everyone else. And all this will be because their foolish father and mother let them have everything they wanted, and allowed them to go everywhere they liked, and that is not at all ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... fate to the God who had summoned him to His service; but he was well aware that he must not rest content with mere pious confidence, and therefore thought by day and night of escape. But the chain that bound him to his companions in suffering was too firmly forged, and was so carefully examined and hammered every morning and evening, that the attempt to escape would only have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... this—Literature is not a mere Science, to be studied; but an Art, to be practised. Great as is our own literature, we must consider it as a legacy to be improved. Any nation that potters with any glory of its past, as a thing dead and done for, is to that extent renegade. ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... it: and it is not mere intellect, it is a sympathetic intellect; or else it is an intellect in perfect accord with an intensely sympathetic disposition;—the rarity of it makes it too precious to be parted with when once we have met it. I prize it the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... together. I tried to form a rearguard to bring up the stragglers, but the guard would not remain behind, nor the stragglers keep up with the main body; and I soon, finding that something more persuasive than mere words was requisite to maintain them in order, took the first opportunity of getting a stout cudgel, with which I soundly belaboured all those whom I found guilty of thus disobeying my commands. The Eastern does not understand the suaviter in modo;—behave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... to arrive, yet it was a new country and no bridges. The streams might get up so as to be impassable, and the houses were consigned to me, and no one but myself to receive them. I thought I had better get back to San Francisco at once. What I was making in the mines was mere nothing to what I had at stake in the houses. Although, to tell the truth, I never left a place with more regret, as hard as the fare was. We were interested every day in the work for gold, and did ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... last of them and an untimely birth; but I have found mercy that I should be some one, if so I shall attain unto God. My spirit salutes you, and the love of the Churches which received me in the name of Jesus Christ, not as a mere wayfarer; for even those Churches which did not lie on my route after the flesh, went before me from city ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... unpleasant HAPPENED between me and Charles. Nothing happens. Something happens in my relationship to my dog. I pat him and he is pleased; he barks for joy when I go out. I cannot live with anybody with whom I am always on exactly the same even terms—no rising, no falling, mere stagnation. I am dead, but it is death without its sleep and peace. Fool, fool that I was! I cannot go on. What shall I do? If Charles drank I might cure or tolerate him; if he went after another woman I might win him back. I can lay ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... decided to close it down. It was a very visible brown streak a thousand yards away. The word was passed back to the '75's' in the rear. There was a 'tir rapide' over our heads. My word, the man who stands fast under a 'tir rapide,' be he Boche, French or British, is a man of mettle! The mere passage of the shells was awe-inspiring, at first like the screaming of a wintry wind, and then thickening into the howling of a pack of wolves. The trench was a line of terrific explosions. Then the dust settled down and all was still. Where were the ants who had made the nest? Were they buried ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... statement, however, must in a measure be modified. These pictures are letters and something more. Some of them are purely alphabetical in character, and some are symbolic in another way. Some characters represent syllables. Others stand sometimes as mere representatives of sounds, and again, in a more extended sense, as representatives of things, such as all hieroglyphics doubtless were in the beginning. In a word, this is an alphabet, but not a perfected alphabet such as modern ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... emperor, impatiently, when Count Bubna hesitated; "I must know all, and am not so cowardly as to be frightened by mere words." ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... myself and thought that I must be getting on well with the old General—first the offer of his library and now of his gun—and I thanked him for the interest which he had shown in me, a mere stranger. "A well-bred Southerner is never a stranger in the South," said he. "We are held together by an affection stronger than any tie that runs from heart to heart in any other branch of the human family. But," he added, sadly shaking his head, "I fear that this affection is weakening. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... mere form, Her Highness was commanded to swear to be faithful to the new order of government, and to hate the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... got none, sir," answered Bill. "I told you the truth, that we are mere ship-boys, and as to being spies as you seem to think, we had nothing to spy ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... governor of a town or fortress. In later times he has gradually sunk down to the rank of an officer of the court, who is trusted with the service of writs and certain police duties, but he is still of higher rank than the mere corchete or catch-poll. The title has also been given to inspectors of weights and measures in market-places, and similar ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which has remained with her to this day, surviving all the airy philosophic theories of humanity which thought to supersede the old solid national temper. The English national temper is better fitted for traffic with the world than any mere doctrine can ever be, for it is marked by an immense tolerance. And this, too, Shakespeare has expressed. Falstaff is perhaps the most tolerant man who was ever made in God's image. But it is rather late in the day to introduce Falstaff ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... excessively small, many of them barely visible with the strongest lenses. The larger ones (Fig. 8) recall quite strongly the smaller species of oscillaria, and exhibit similar movements. Others are so small as to appear as mere lines and dots, even with the strongest lenses. Among the common forms are small, nearly globular cells; oblong, rod-shaped or thread-shaped filaments, either straight or curved, or even spirally twisted. Frequently they show ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... see more charm in beauty than in that of Marguerite. Excessively tall and thin, she had in the fullest degree the art of repairing this oversight of Nature by the mere arrangement of the things she wore. Her cashmere reached to the ground, and showed on each side the large flounces of a silk dress, and the heavy muff which she held pressed against her bosom was surrounded ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... that he designs that I should be married. I cannot marry without the approval of those who gave me life; and you know what the fury of my father would be if I were to confess my love for you—for he would assuredly not suffer me to be united to one whom he deems my inferior in that mere worldly rank for which I care nothing. Yet I cannot marry a man I do not love; and you are the only ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... there was much friendly strife with regard to the solving of hard arithmetical problems. This contest was no mere private matter. It was entered into with great zest by the men of both the villages concerned; the Catwickians and the Ristonians each backing their man to win. "A straw shows which way the wind blows," we say, and herein we ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... were trying to degrade and humiliate their people by putting them upon a level with the negro, she did not for a moment believe, despite what he had said. Neither did she imagine, even then, that he had any feeling for Mollie Ainslie other than mere gratitude for the service she had rendered, but supposed that his outburst was owing merely to anger at the slighting language used toward her by Cousin Hetty. Yet she felt a dim premonition of something dreadful about to happen, and was ill at ease during the evening ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... appropriated to such humane uses; both those to which he has prefixed his name, and several others which he wrote and gave away intirely. But, though the many imagined authors are not living, their names, and those performances will be omitted here; yet, in mere justice to the character of Mr. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... feelings are terribly mixed up with their personal appearance. It was some time before Mr. Mafferton would consent to be even tolerably at his ease, though I made a distinct effort to show that I bore no malice. It must have been the mere memory of the past that embarrassed him, for the other two were as completely unaware of his existence as they well could be in the same carriage. For a time, as I talked in commonplaces, Mr. Mafferton in monosyllables, and Mr. Dod and Miss Portheris in regards, the most sordid ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... simplicity and clearness made him hesitate to accept it. Was it possible that so complicated a phenomenon could have so simple and terrible an explanation? Was it possible that all these words about justice, law, religion, and God, and so on, were mere words, hiding the coarsest cupidity ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... She made no effort to withdraw her hand from Karl's; she was completely under his sinister, dominating influence. Karl's will seemed equally impotent; he could not shake off the mysterious obsession. This man was more than a mere physical presence; he was a part of their very selves—the weaker, sensual impulses against which they had fought, but which now seemed gaining the mastery. The struggle went on in the soul of each as Millar's voice fell melodiously ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... the well-known witticisms attributed to great judges are so tinged with personality—even tending to malignity—that no one possessing respect for human nature can read them without being tempted to regard them as mere biographical fabrications. But such a construction cannot be put upon the stories told of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, whose overbearing insolence to the Bar is well known. To a few friends like John Scott, Lord Eldon, and Lloyd Kenyon, Lord Kenyon, he ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... Sympson, who lived not far from the Lincolns at this period, left this description of "a mere spindle of a boy," in one of his earliest attempts to defend himself against odds, while waiting at the neighboring mill while ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... in one day are burdensome to the little folk. And mothers "enjoy the service far more when they are not disturbed by fidgety or drowsy children." "Then, too, much of the sermon is unintelligible to them. Why torture them by a mere form?" ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... a kind of charity of the dinner table and ballroom finer, I think, than the mere kindness of giving, finer because it requires discretion, nobler because it requires self-elimination. The more I saw of Miss Gore the more deeply was I impressed by her many amiable qualities. She had an ear for Jerry, but aware of my complete elimination by the rowdy upon my left, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... young widow of this old bachelor's life-long friend, the noted judge of that name, then some two years deceased. Constance and Anna were her step-daughters, the latter (if you would believe him) a counterpart of her long-lost, beautiful mother, whose rejection of the soldier's suit, when he was a mere lieutenant, was the well-known cause of his singleness. These Callender ladies, prompted by him and with a sweet modesty of quietness, had just armed a new field battery with its six splendid brass guns, and it was around these three Callenders that his ponderings now hung; especially around Anna ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... aspects of one and the same fact. Homo duplex, said the great Buffon: why not add Res duplex? Everything has two sides, even virtue. Hence Moliere always shows us both sides of every human problem; and Diderot, imitating him, once wrote, "This is not a mere tale"—in what is perhaps Diderot's masterpiece, where he shows us the beautiful picture of Mademoiselle de Lachaux sacrificed by Gardanne, side by side with that of a perfect ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... impressed Alfred greatly. He became certain Node would make the flying machine a success. Therefore, he built the platform on the barn longer that Node might get a better start. Alfred was strong in the belief that he could greatly aid Node with the clothes prop as before. But at the mere suggestion Node became angry. He threatened to abandon the flight if he caught sight of a clothes prop in Alfred's hands. Node knew full well once he was strapped in the machine Alfred could do anything he chose. He therefore determined that ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... would never have expected from savages. In her temporary charge of them during the nuns' annual retreat, she found no difficulty in enforcing silence; it was enough for them to know that their dear Mothers were spending the week with God; the mere fear of even slightly disturbing them, proved a sufficient restraint. If the Foundress occasionally happened to be absent for a short time on some errand of mercy, they were inconsolable until her ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... most works of this kind are well known to all experienced housekeepers, they being generally a mere compilation of receipts, by those who have no practical knowledge of the subject, and are consequently unable to judge of their correctness, or to give the necessary directions for putting the ingredients together in the right manner. A conviction ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... women angels of light, while there were others who had no hesitation in declaring that they were devils incarnate, though in neither case were they willing to grant them the same rights and privileges which they themselves possessed. Though many other facts of the same kind might be adduced, the mere existence of such discussion is enough to prove to the most undiscerning that woman's place in society was not clearly recognized, and that there were many difficulties to be overcome before she could consider herself free from ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger |
