"Prime of life" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... immediate secession. He made short work of that scheme, however. He returned to Georgia in the fall of 1850, and immediately began one of the most extraordinary campaigns that has ever taken place in the State. He was in the prime of life. His fiery energy, his boldness, his independence, and his dauntless courage, were in full flower. He took issue with what seemed to be the unanimous sentiment of the State. He declared that the call for the convention had dishonored the State. He sent ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... name. She died; and her place was supplied by a German princess nearly allied to the Imperial House. But the second marriage, like the first, proved barren; and, long before the King had passed the prime of life, all the politicians of Europe had begun to take it for granted in all their calculations that he would be the last descendant, in the male line, of Charles the Fifth. Meanwhile a sullen and abject melancholy took possession of his soul. The diversions which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... paced the single walk An hour, yet is not weary; And, though it be a winter night He feels nor cold nor dreary. The prime of life is in his veins, And sends his blood fast flowing, And Fancy's fervour warms the thoughts Now in ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... some young officers of his own training, who know well the English language, and may be of immediate service in the same important department of discipline. As Colonel Conway has been long in service, (though in prime of life) I am confident you will not think it right he should rank under those who have served under him in this kingdom, which will not be the case if he fills the place of an Adjutant, or Brigadier General, for which, I am well assured, he is every way ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... way to a pleached alley out of sight of the windows. There they stood still. It was a strange meeting of two who had not seen each other for fourteen years, when the one was a tall, ungainly youth, the other well-nigh a child. And now Giles was a fine, soldierly man in the prime of life, with a short, curled beard, and powerful, alert bearing, and Aldonza, though the first flower of her youth had gone by, yet, having lived a sheltered and far from toilsome life, was a really beautiful ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... will be a Baroness! This is Regency, Louis XV., (Eil-de-boeuf—quite tip-top!—very good.) I love Celestine as a man loves his only child—so well indeed, that, to preserve her from having either brother or sister, I resigned myself to all the privations of a widower—in Paris, and in the prime of life, madame. But you must understand that, in spite of this extravagant affection for my daughter, I do not intend to reduce my fortune for the sake of your son, whose expenses are not wholly accounted for—in my eyes, as an ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... said at length: "how many of them I have known! Some of them were in my squadron. Nearly all young, or in the prime of life—all dead before their time, worn out ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... to the proudest of Eastern monarchs. This splendid troop consisted of five hundred men and each horse which it contained was worth an earl's ransom. The riders were Georgian and Circassian slaves in the very prime of life. Their helmets and hauberks were formed of steel rings, so bright that they shone like silver; their vestures were of the gayest colours, and some of cloth of gold or silver; the sashes were twisted with silk and gold, their rich turbans were plumed ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... her then majestic figure,[jo] Her plumpness, her imperial condescension, Her preference of a boy to men much bigger (Fellows whom Messalina's self would pension), Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour, With other extras, which we need not mention,— All these, or any one of these, explain Enough to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the North of Scotland when the vessel was wrecked. Mary had produced a strong impression on him when they first met. He had lingered in the neighborhood, in the hope of gaining her favorable regard, with time to help him. Personally he was a handsome man, in the prime of life; and he was possessed of a sufficient income to marry on. In making his proposal, he produced references to persons of high social position in Holland, who could answer for him, so far as the questions of character and ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... ditch that drags its slime along, beneath the foundations of this prison; I could not be more forgotten or unheeded than I am here. I am a dead man; dead to society, without the pity they bestow on those whose souls have passed to judgment. Friends to see me! My God! I have sunk, from the prime of life into old age, in this place, and there is not one to raise his hand above my bed when I lie dead upon it, and say, "It is a blessing he ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... hands. "If I had seen that volcano you would never have seen me, but you would have heard of me. I had it from an Indio whose father once saw it with his own eyes; but I was too old, too old"—sighing—"to go on the quest. To undertake such an enterprise a man should be in the prime of life and go alone. A single companion, even though he were your own brother, might be fatal; for what virtue could be proof against so great a temptation—millions of diamonds and a ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... that stuck to his last stand. The works of Mr. Cradock have, since his decease, been published by Mr. J. B. Nichols, in 4 vols. 8vo. They contain his Essay on Gardening and Village Memoirs. They are enriched by a miniature portrait of him, by Hone, in 1764, when Mr. Cradock was in his prime of life, in his twenty-second year, and when his piercing eyes and intelligent countenance, were thought to have resembled those of Mr. Garrick. There is also a profile shade of Mr. Cradock, taken of him only a month before ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... India should have stood towards each other in the relationship of contemporary friends. Lord Dalhousie, when named to the government of India, was the youngest man who had ever been appointed to a situation of such high responsibility and trust. Lord Canning was in the prime of life; and I, if I am not already on the decline, am nearer to the verge of it than either of my contemporaries who have preceded me. When I was leaving England for India, Lord Ellenborough, who is now, alas! the only surviving ex-Governor-General, said to ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... a clear musical and manly voice—put the whole case against the crown in a nut-shell. The appearance of the speaker too—a fine, handsome, robust, and well-built man, in the prime of life, with the unmistakable stamp of honest sincerity on his countenance and in his eye—gave his words greater effect with the audience; and it was very audibly murmured on all sides that he had given the government a home thrust in ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... in Italy; Kellogg and Starr Jordan in America. The case is indeed overwhelming. The lives destroyed in war are nearly all males, thus disturbing the sex equilibrium of the population; they are in the prime of life, at the age of greatest fecundity; and they are picked from a list out of which from 20 to 30 per cent. have been rejected for physical unfitness. It seems to be proved that the children born in France during the Napoleonic wars were poor and undersized—30 ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... was now before an appreciative world, and in the flush of fine feeling that followed his triumph he wrote The House of the Seven Gables, A Wonder Book and The Snow Image. Literature was calling him most hopefully when, at the very prime of life, he turned his back on fortune. His friend Pierce had been nominated by the Democrats (1852), and he was asked to write the candidate's biography for campaign purposes. It was hardly a worthy task, but he accepted it and did it well. When Pierce was elected he "persuaded" Hawthorne to ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... on the stage of a little theatre, the scenery of which represented the shores of the sea, the blue sky, palaces and temples, they would portray the most interesting events. Though no taller than a man's arm some of them represented respectable old men, others men in the prime of life, and, others still, beautiful young girls ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... am eighteen years older than when you saw me last. Time brings changes, you know. When I saw you last, you were a man in the prime of life, now you are a feeble ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in the prime of life, Shakespeare soon abandoned his dramatic work for the comfortable life of a country gentleman. Of his later plays, Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, and Pericles show a decided falling off from his previous work, and indicate ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... destin'd such delights to share, My prime of life in wand'ring spent and care, Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue 25 Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view; That, like the circle bounding earth and skies, Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... perennial stream, through my memory,—from which I please myself with thinking that I have learned to wind without fretting against the shore, or forgetting cohere I am flowing,—sinuous, I say, but not jerky,—no, not jerky nor hard to follow for a reader of the right sort, in the prime of life and full possession ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... in the prime of life, forsake the service for which he had been educated, and to which he had already given many of his best years? Could he be content to bid a final farewell to the glorious old ocean so long his home, so beautiful and lovable in ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... a fellow feel a bit of a patriarch. Snowy hair and what not. And, of course, for a chappie in the prime of life like you—" ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... enamoured of his fair prisoner, and in order to have leisure to pay his court to her, he sent off his partida on a distant expedition under the command of Fuentes, and himself remained at Castrillo, doing his utmost to find favour in the eyes of the beautiful Madame Barbot. He was then in the prime of life, a remarkably handsome man, and notwithstanding that the French affected to treat him as a brigand, his courage and patriotism were admitted by the unprejudiced among all parties, and his bold and successful deeds had already procured him a degree ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... for making much ado about nothing. Indeed, this was a growing weakness with me. Some trifle unworthy of consideration would get on my nerves and bother me like a grain of sand in the eye. Was I getting old? But, no, I felt in the prime of life, full of vigor, and more active and more alive to ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... the arts began to flourish in this country, which is only about fifty years. Mr. Copley next, then Colonel Trumbull. Stuart in America has no rival here. As these are now old men and going off the stage, Mr. Allston succeeds in the prime of life, and will, in the opinion of the greatest connoisseurs in this country, carry the art to greater perfection than it ever has been carried either in ancient or modern times.... After him is a young man from Philadelphia by the name of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of writing to friends in Montreal, 'take my arm, young lady, and I'll show you some of our Ottawa lions. Biggest of all, to my fancy, is the town itself—only twenty-five years old, and as large as if it had been growing for centuries. The man is only in the prime of life who felled the first tree on this site, and now the town covers as much ground as Boston. Certainly ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... when the war is over ("if still alive" is, we presume, understood). Large numbers of manufacturing and other firms have notified their workmen and clerks in similar terms. This means pretty serious economic pressure. A man in the prime of life, suddenly ousted from his job, and with no prospect either of finding a similar job elsewhere or of learning any new one, is in a pretty fix. His only certain refuge lies in the fact that he can be taught to use a rifle in a few weeks; and in a few weeks perhaps it becomes clear ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... eyes directly upon Atta-Kulla-Kulla, himself in the prime of life now, in 1745, who it seemed must act definitely under this coercion. He must either refuse to testify to the truth, which he knew, or involve his people, the Cherokees, in a quarrel which did not concern them, of which a century was tired, ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of a Bologna sausage. This did not prevent his seeing the naked man who was to be eaten walk slowly and stiffly across the gangway and down the corridor. He saw him from behind. It was a big handsome man in the prime of life, quite naked and perhaps stupid. But of course he was only a skin stuffed with meat, whom the grey ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... pages will disclose; suffice it here to state, that there was no lack of personal attractions or mental graces, to account for the universal, yet unspoken and unacknowledged dislike which he inspired. Apparently in the prime of life, he yet seemed to have relinquished all the pleasures and even the passions of life. Austere, even rigid, in those acts of piety and personal mortifications enjoined by his religion—voluntary fasts, privations, nights supposed to be past in vigil and in penance; ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... Yuan-ch'un is, on account of her talents, selected to enter the Feng Ts'ao Palace. Ch'in Ching-ch'ing departs, in the prime of life, by the yellow ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... could be seen very distinctly, and it was one with more individual character than any Mickey had as yet noticed. It was not handsome nor very homely, but that of a man in the prime of life, with a prominent nose—a regular contour of countenance for an Indian. The face was painted, as was the long black hair which dangled about his shoulders. His eye was a powerful black one, which flitted restlessly, as he keenly ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... be in the prime of life, which for a man may be reckoned at thirty years—from twenty-five, when he has 'passed the point at which the speed of life is greatest,' to fifty-five; and at twenty years for a woman—from twenty to forty. Any one above or below those ages who partakes in ...
— The Republic • Plato
... spirit of Christianity, and the enlightenment consequent on the Advance of Science.[A] After fourteen years of such a life, how glorious must have been the opportunities the freedom of the Bush afforded to an instinctive miscreant, still in the prime of life, and artificially debarred for so long from the indulgence of a natural bent for wickedness; not yet ennuye by the monotony of crime in practice, which often leads to a reaction, occasionally accompanied by worldly success. There was, however, about Daverill a redeeming point. He was ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... age of the persons they are attracted to, Hirschfeld (p. 281) admits two main groups, each including about 45 per cent. of the homosexual; ephebophils, attracted to youths between 14 and 21, and androphils, attracted to adults in the prime of life. This division, as may be seen from the histories included in the present volume, seems to hold good ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... as will appear when we come to the last act of the tragedy. Captain Roald Amundsen was one of the most notable of living explorers, and was in the prime of life—forty-one, two years younger than Scott. He had been in the Antarctic before Scott, with the Belgica Expedition in 1897-99, and therefore did not consider the South Pole in any sense our property. Since then he had realized the dream of centuries of exploration by passing ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Henry was now past sixty years of age, and the younger almost beyond the prime of life. Still length of time had not diminished, but rather had increased, their anxious longings for their ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... and serious, as gluttony, and robbing their fathers, and dice, and revellings, and drinking-bouts, and deflowering of maidens, and seducing of married women. Such outbreaks ought to be carefully checked and curbed. For that prime of life is prodigal in pleasure, and frisky, and needs a bridle, so that those parents who do not strongly check that period, are foolishly, if unawares, giving their youths license for vice.[34] Sensible parents, therefore, ought during all that period ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... current literature. The sense of age about the magazines on a doctor's table is heightened by the absence of the front and back covers. The only way of ascertaining the date of publication is to hunt for the table of contents. That, however, is a task which few able-bodied men in the prime of life are equal to, not to say a roomful of sick people, nervous with anticipation. Most patients under such circumstances set out courageously, but only to lose themselves in the first half-dozen pages of the advertising section. Yet the result ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... Maccallum, were all triumphantly depicted. He will be known, however, as the citizen portrait-painter of the nineteenth century, who preserved for us not merely the form, but the spirit of some of the greatest men of his day. Lord Tennyson sat three times. In 1859 the poet was shown in the prime of life, his hair and beard ruffled, his look determined. In 1864 we had another canvas—"the moonlight portrait"; the face is that of Merlin, meditative, thoughtful. As you look at it the features stand out with great clearness, the distance of the laurels behind his head can ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... truth be added, that old men are not the only ones with whom composers run this risk. There are men in the prime of life, of a lymphatic temperament, whose blood seems to circulate moderato. If they have to conduct an allegro assai, they gradually slacken it to moderato; if, on the contrary, it is a largo or an andante sostenuto, provided ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... from them I saw a man in the prime of life, with his beard newly shorn, clad in a robe and a mantle of yellow satin; and round the top of his mantle was a band of gold lace. On his feet were shoes of variegated leather, fastened by two bosses of gold. When I saw him, I went towards him and saluted him, and such was his courtesy ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... sakes. If she will not let me take my own way, I must just throw it all up and go abroad. God bless her! I know she means what she says, and Mike is Mike still.' And then he groaned, and his head dropped on his arms, and the tide of desolation swept over him. He was still young—in the prime of life—and yet what good was his life ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... visitors on the quarter-deck. He looked like one who was eminently well qualified to hunt up, run down, cut out, or in any other mode make away with pirates. There was much of the bull-terrier in him—solid, broad, short, large-chested—no doubt also large-hearted—active, in the prime of life, with short black curly hair, a short black beard and moustache, a square chin, a pleasant smile, a prominent nose, and an eagle eye. Indeed he might himself have made a splendid chief of the very race against which he ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... suction at the stem, descends through a tube into the water, and none of it escapes visibly, into the open air. The Rev. Mr. Weikamp, the Superior, is a German, and speaks English fluently. He is in the prime of life, and is full of energy and perseverance. He is not one of those who, from the fact of belonging to a religious order, may be supposed to be gloomy, with head bowed down, not hardly daring to cast his eyes up into the beautiful light of the heavens; but he converses with freedom, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... man of mark, mild, genial, affectionate, yet bold, cautious, and commanding. He was in the prime of life, of majestic stature, and of great gravity of countenance and manners. His face was painted red, after the manner of the warriors of his tribe. His glossy raven hair, well oiled, was cut short in front, but hung thick and long ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... whom we found at the counter was in the prime of life, plainly, but neatly dressed,—no doubt in her best attire, as she was to be seen in public, and she knew that her whole capital lay in her appearance. I judged her to be an educated lady. Though a stranger to my mother, yet she accosted her so politely, and in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... being a good seaman, and undoubtedly he was, and being strong and vigorous, in the prime of life, he was considered an especially valuable man to Captain Bergen, who paid him five dollars more per ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... been if he had not let his fountain play naturally. Still, though he bubbled and brimmed over with fun, he left the impression on me that . . . . there is a pain and care, bred, it may be, out of the very richness of his gifts and abundance of his outward prosperity. Rich, in the prime of life, . . . . and children budding and blossoming around him as fairly as his heart could wish, with sparkling talents,—so many, that if he choose to neglect or fling away one, or two, or three, he would still have enough left to shine with,—who should be happy if ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... collection of skulls, I asked the captain if he knew the spot where the body of the Albanian lay, and if the bones were still there, and when he assured me that they were where he fell, I offered him two florins to bring me the skull, which he did. It was of a man in the prime of life, with the sutures scarcely closed, and only two teeth lacking, and none unsound, and I sent it on to the great craniologist, who replied with warm thanks. The skull, he said, was the finest for intellectual development in his collection, and he read ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... incautious effort to realise it in the plans of the Corresponding Society. In these crowded years that began with the fall of the Bastille and closed with the Terror, it was to enter on yet another phase, and in this last incarnation the hope was very near despair. To men in the early prime of life, aware of their powers and their gift of influence, the Revolution came as a call to action. To a group of still younger men, poets and thinkers, forming their first eager views of life in the leisure of the Universities, it was above all a stimulus to fancy. Godwin was their ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... one. He was not a native-born Swiss, and he did not seek naturalization, or claim any right in the canton. He did not seek permission to marry or to build a house, but as he was skilful and industrious and thrifty, a man in the prime of life, the commune ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... continued the doctor slowly. "Here is a beautiful woman in the prime of life, the wife of a very wealthy retired banker considerably older than herself—perhaps nearly seventy—of very fine family. Of course you have read it all, but let me sketch it so you will look at it from my point of view. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... of the great party which gloried in Washington as their chief, were Robert Goodloe Harper of South Carolina, Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, Roger Griswold and Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, who led the front and held the wings of debate; while in reserve, broken in health but still in the prime of life, the pride of his party and of the House, was Fisher Ames, the orator of his day, whose magic tones held friend and foe in rapt attention, while he mastered the reason or touched the heart. Upon these men the Federal party relied for the vindication of their principles and the maintenance of ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... natal hour, And only now my prime of life; I will not doubt the love untold, Which not my worth or want hath bought, Which wooed me young, and wooes me old, And to this evening hath ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... praying for the prolongation of his detested life, so that their mutual suffering might last the longer. Every one remarked the great change which had taken place in him. In the spring he was a strong man in the prime of life; now he was like a feeble, ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... patch, hoping that he would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed in the potatoes. She watched him stooping till his back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped so much that now he could not stand upright, though still in the prime of life; if he stood up and stretched himself, still his back was bowed at the shoulders. He worked so hard—ever since she could remember she had seen him working like this; he was up in the morning while it was yet dark tending the ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... hitherto acted with a single-hearted view to his own interests. At the age of thirty he had raised himself from nothing to a principality, which, though petty, might compare with many of some name in Italy—with Carpi, for example, or Mirandola, or Camerino. Nor did he mean to remain quiet in the prime of life. He regarded Como Lake as the mere basis for more arduous undertakings. Therefore, when the whirligig of events restored Francesco Sforza to his duchy in 1529, Il Medeghino refused to obey his old lord. Pretending ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Court of Texas, paid us a visit, and brought with him a gentleman, whom he had known several years previously on the Sabine River, in the eastern part of that State. This gentleman was introduced to us by the name of Summerfield. At that time he was past the prime of life, slightly gray, and inclined to corpulency. He was of medium height, and walked proudly erect, as though conscious of superior mental attainments. His face was one of those which, once seen, can never be forgotten. The forehead was ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... envious rivals and to all who opposed his reforms. As for Piero Soderini, he was possessed by the belief that in time and with favourable fortune he could allay envy by gentleness-and by benefits conferred on particular men; for as he was still in the prime of life, and in the fresh enjoyment of that good-will which his character and opinions had gained for him, he thought to get the better of all who out of jealousy opposed him, without giving occasion for tumult, violence, or disorder; not knowing ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... with his own sad heart: "He comes, my King,— A helpless burden to his servitors. Alas, alas! That these mine eyes should see The sovereign of a strong and noble race, Now in the very flower and prime of life, Brought low, and made a bounden slave Unto a shameful and a stubborn sickness!... Ye servitors, be careful of this couch! Careful! Set down the litter tenderly! I hear the King, our ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... was at this time about forty years of age, in the prime of life. In his youth, in order to perfect his education, he had visited England, Scotland, and Italy. In England Elizabeth had called him her knight; in Scotland James VI had asked him to stand godfather to his son, afterwards Charles I; in Italy he had been so deep in the confidence of the ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of society; the burdens. The able-bodied and competent part of a society is the adults in the prime of life. These have to bear all the societal burdens, among which are the care of those too young and of those too old to care for themselves. It is certain that at a very early time in the history of human society the burden of bearing and rearing children, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... many German prisoners in groups and convoys, the sight of two on the road fixed the attention because of the surroundings and the contrast suggested between French and German natures. Both were young, in the very prime of life, and both Prussian. One was dark-complexioned, with a scrubbly beard which was the product of the war. He marched with such rigidity that I should not have been surprised to see him break into a goose-step. The other was of that mild, blue-eyed, tow-haired type from the Baltic ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... O Lord! A poor wretch I am, a poor wretch whose sufferings are endless! What a life, what a life mine's been, come to think of it! In my young days, I was beaten by a German I was 'prentice to; in the prime of life beaten by my own countrymen, and last of all, in ripe years, see what I have ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... I had a splendid staff of workers, and, under advice from the late tenant, I selected one to be foreman or bailiff. Blue-eyed, dark-haired, tall, lean, and muscular, he was the picture of energy, in the prime of life. Straightforward, unselfish, a natural leader of men, courageous and untiring, he immediately became devoted to me, and remained my right hand, my dear friend, and adviser in the practical working of the farm, throughout the twenty years that followed. ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... on the physical and mental suffering caused by war; General Sherman's famous declaration, "War is hell!" sums the matter up. Agonizing wounds, pitiless disease, the permanent crippling, enfeeblement, or death of vigorous men in the prime of life, the anguish of wives and sweethearts, the loneliness of widows, the lack of care for orphans-it is impossible for those who have not lived through a great war to realize the horror of it, the cruel pain suffered by those on the field, the torturing suspense of those left behind. It is, indeed, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... your worst. During those ten years I shall have ample time to perfect myself in at least three languages, and to read extensively, and I shall leave the jail at forty-five a polished and learned man, in the prime of life, and possessed of enormous wealth. There will be no pleasure that I cannot purchase. I shall become a good-natured cynic; I shall freely admit that I have disturbed the ordinary relations of labor and compensation, but I shall so treat the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... Tiridates presented himself in Rome, bringing with him not only his own children but those of Vologaesus, of Pacorus, and of Monobazus. They were the objects of interest in a quasi-triumphal procession through the whole country west from the Euphrates. [Sidenote:—2—] Tiridates himself was in the prime of life, a notable figure by reason of his youth, beauty, family, and intelligence: and his whole train of servants together with the entourage of a royal court accompanied the advance. Three thousand Parthian horsemen and besides them numerous Romans followed his train. ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... his brother full in the face, thus noticing how thin that face was, too thin for a man in the prime of life, and the eye was too bright. As the brief feeling of annoyance subsided, the habitual charm of the elder man's smile made him ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... capitoul, and of all the pretty women as well, - a class very numerous at Toulouse. It was impossible to have a finer person than that of the portress who pretended to show me the apart- ments in which the Floral Games are held; a big, brown, expansive woman, still in the prime of life, with a speaking eye, an extraordinary assurance, and a pair of magenta stockings, which were inserted into the neatest and most polished little black sabots, and which, as she clattered up the stairs before me, lavishly displaying them, made her look like ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... youth; juvenility, juvenescence[obs3]; juniority[obs3]; infancy; babyhood, childhood, boyhood, girlhood, youthhood[obs3]; incunabula; minority, nonage, teens, tender age, bloom. cradle, nursery, leading strings, pupilage, puberty, pucelage[obs3]. prime of life, flower of life, springtide of life[obs3], seedtime of life, golden season of life; heyday of youth, school days; rising generation. Adj. young, youthful, juvenile, green, callow, budding, sappy, puisne, beardless, under age, in one's teens; in statu pupillari[Lat]; younger, junior; hebetic[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... resting on his hand, and his eyes fixed intently on a book. Owing to the distance, and the few leaves and branches that intervened between them and the hut, they could not observe him very distinctly. But it was evident that he was a large and strong man, a little past the prime of life. The hair of his head and beard was black and bushy, and streaked with silver-grey. His face was massive, and of a dark olive complexion, with an expression of sadness on it, strangely mingled with stern gravity. ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... large study furnished with magnificent book-cases containing old volumes in costly bindings. M. de Lourtier-Vaneau was a man still in the prime of life, wearing a slightly grizzled beard and, by his affable manners and genuine distinction, commanding confidence ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... steadily on, always watchful with curiosity. He was a tall, well-built man, apparently in the prime of life. His shoulders were square and rather stiff, he leaned forwards a little as he went, from the hips, like a man who must stoop to lower his height. But he did not stoop his shoulders: he bent his straight back ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... the prime of life, a strong, brave man, who delighted in daring and even dangerous exploits. Wills, an astronomer, was younger, and not so ardent, but prudent, wise, sagacious, and thus well fitted to be the companion of ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... a tall and warlike figure, in the prime of life. He had led his warriors on many successful expeditions far to the west, and had repulsed with great loss the attempts of the Persians to encroach upon his territory. Standing behind him was his son, Amuba, a lad of some fifteen years of age. The king and his councilors, as well as ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... all this prosperity, in the prime of life and in excellent health, he suddenly formed the resolution of withdrawing to a greater distance from Rome [310]. It is uncertain whether this was the result of disgust for his wife, whom he neither durst accuse nor divorce, and the connection ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... terribly excited; but beneath the excitement was a dull, aching pain. For hours I walked the headland and tried to realise that my father was dead, that I should hear his voice no more; but realisation was impossible. I had seen him ride away in the morning, a handsome, robust, man in the prime of life, and now——. ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... I was in the prime of life, just forty years of age. From my private note-books and other sources I begin recollections of the most significant years in Brooklyn, preceding the local elections in 1877. New York and Brooklyn were playmates then, seeming ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... licentious pleasures which had before been his heaven, were now absolutely his aversion. And indeed, when I consider how habitual all those criminal indulgences were grown to him, and that he was now in the prime of life, and all this while in high health too, I cannot but be astonished to reflect upon it, that he should be so wonderfully sanctified in body, as well as in soul and spirit, as that, for all the future years of his life, ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... progress of Russian conquest upon his northern frontier. After Persia had long been closed from foreign intercourse by the jealous and cruel Shah, Aga Mohammed, Fath' Ali, a comparatively enlightened prince in the prime of life, willingly entertained envoys and travellers from European courts, and Sir Gore Ouseley was resident at Shiraz as British Ambassador. Yet it was not considered safe for a Frank to travel through Persia without an Oriental dress, and, accordingly, Martyn had to provide ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... day when John Matterby, being in the prime of life, with ample means and time to spare, set his heart on a holiday and a visit to the old country—the thin little old lady being yet alive. It was not so easy, however, for our hero to get away from home as ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... was unique. He looked like no one else. To a stature lofty and commanding he united a form of the manliest proportions, and a dignifed, graceful, and imposing carriage. In the prime of life he stood six feet, two inches. From the period of the Revolution there was an evident bending in his frame so passing straight before, but the stoop came from the cares and toils of that arduous contest rather than ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... old man; indeed, in years he was in the prime of life. Yet by his looks he might almost have been double his age, the more so in contrast with Minna Pitts, his young and very pretty wife, who stood near him in the quaint breakfast-room and solicitously moved a ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... amount to anything, except in the fond hopes of his anxious parents. He knows nothing, and he can do nothing, except learn by his blunders; and some of 'em can't do that. But if he has any stuff in him, he grows and ripens with time, as you and I did. What bosh, to put the prime of life at twenty-five. They ought to move it on a bit; about our age, now, a man ought to be ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... burden, and while war menaced England on every hand, congratulated the house on the increasing prosperity of the country. At this time, however, the prime minister had lost much of his usual confidence, arising partly from his declining health. Although in the prime of life, Pitt, from the task which he had undertaken, and which he so energetically performed, was now in constitution a worn-out man. The burden of office was too great for his strength; and it had become manifest that he would never arrive at ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he was a lonely man whom ill-health and sorrow had left little to expect from life. His wife and only daughter had died in Guam soon after the end of the Spanish war, in which he had received the wound which had incapacitated him for service and forced him to retire in what should have been the prime of life. Since that hour he had lived only to kill time; the deadliest fate to which a human being can be condemned. Until Polly entered his lonely world it would have been hard to picture a duller life than he led, but her ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Derl. "They're so final. To see a fine young quarrel, in the prime of life, die by lightning—sad! sad!" She started drawing off her gloves. "Let's have tea." As she poured tea for them she asked, "And what's the real reason you two aren't coming to ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... He had good reason to provide for the replenishment of the ranks of his army. The mental quality of the individuals mattered little to him. Wars are a harmful factor in human selection, for they destroy or mutilate the fittest in the prime of life, while leaving the unfit and ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... with the unblenching tawny eyes was an object of envy to the whole fraternity, for La Cibot had not forgotten the knowledge of cookery picked up at the Cadran Bleu. So it had come to pass that the Cibots had passed the prime of life, and saw themselves on the threshold of old age without a hundred francs put by for the future. Well clad and well fed, they enjoyed among the neighbors, it is true, the respect due to twenty-six years of strict honesty; ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... never revisited Adelaide, although she has many relatives here. So the friend who loved Australia, and was eager to do his duty by it—who thoroughly approved of the Hare system of representation, and thought I did well to take it up, was snatched away in the prime of life. I wonder if there is any one alive now to whom his memory is as precious. The Register files may preserve some ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... funeral sermon preached at St. Mary's Church, Torquay, on the second Sunday after Trinity, 1847. The subject was George May Coleridge, vicar of the parish, the poet's nephew, who had been cut off in the prime of life while Froude acted as his curate. The sermon itself is not remarkable, except for being written in unusually good English. The doctrine is strictly orthodox, and the simple life of a good clergyman devoted to his people is described with ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... held the Venetian mirror before him, he was satisfied. The elderly, half-broken-down man of the day before had become a tall, stately noble in the prime of life; nay, in spite of his forty-six years, his eyes sparkled far more brightly and proudly than many a young ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... storm-marked, towering in severe majesty above the rising generation, with a protecting grove of saplings pressing close around his feet, each dressed with such loving care that not a leaf seems wanting. Other companies are made up of trees near the prime of life, exquisitely harmonized to one another in form and gesture, as if Nature had culled them one by one with nice discrimination from all the ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... went on. The inventor, though past the prime of life, and worn down by excessive thought, had some strength left. Its duration was brief; but it was not to be despised while it lasted. He grasped the tall figure of Marcus Wilkeson by the neck with one arm, and with the other struck dozens of blows upon ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... estate, and to extended political connexions as head of the county interest in the shire where it lay. But this was a consummation of things not to be expected at Richard's outset, when Sir Everard was in the prime of life, and certain to be an acceptable suitor in almost any family, whether wealth or beauty should be the object of his pursuit, and when, indeed, his speedy marriage was a report which regularly amused the neighbourhood once a year. His younger brother saw no practicable ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... take the Doctor instead. What have you against him? A man in the prime of life, and a clever ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... that about half of the accidents occurred to men under forty years of age, in the very prime of life. The wages were determined in 241 cases and it was shown that about 25 per cent. were earning less than $10 a week and 60 per cent. were earning less than $15 a week. Even without the accidents occurring to them these ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... close to us, and Robert has seen him in his white hat, wandering along the asphalte. I had a notion, somehow, that he was very old, but he is only elderly—not much above sixty (which is the prime of life, nowadays) and he lives quietly and keeps out of scrapes poetical and political, and if Robert and I had a little less modesty we are assured that we should find access to him easy. But we can't make up our minds to go to his door and introduce ourselves as vagrant minstrels, when he may probably ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... we have alluded, consisted of the Earl of Derwentwater, a noble looking gentleman, who, apparently had but just spent the prime of life,—his fair niece, Mary Hamilton, a stately and beautiful girl, about twenty-three years of age,—Arthur Huntington and his twin brother, Henry—a huge red headed but fat and good natured son of the 'Emerald Isle,' who acted in the capacity of servant to the ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... after twenty years, and when all save the oldest Philadelphians had forgotten Miss Lydia Carew, the very, very distant cousin appeared. He was quite in the prime of life, and so agreeable and unassuming that nothing could be urged against him save his patronymic, which, being Boggs, did not commend itself to the euphemists. With him were two maiden sisters, ladies of excellent taste and manners, who restored the Carew china to its ancient cabinets, ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... the door was opened to me by a man who might be six and forty years of age—there, or thereabout. Guessing the purport of my visit, he said nothing, but led me up to his master's room, when a spectacle of the most appalling character met my eyes. A gentleman in the prime of life, lay extended on a bed—his hair dishevelled, his dress disordered, and his complexion a midway hue between the tints of chalk and Cheshire cheese. His tongue hung out of his mouth, loaded with evidence of internal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... ecclesiastic in the prime of life entered the room, one whose mien impressed the beholder with ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... understood, it was a very wise and sensible division; though eight hours daily for any long period of time, appropriated to services strictly devotional, would not seem to be a wise arrangement, especially for a man in the prime of life, and in a position demanding the constant exercise of his powers in the discharge ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... off in the prime of life, and interrupted in some literary undertakings and projects of great pith and moment. He had written a portion of a treatise on the "Evidences of Christianity," and was meditating some works, such as a "Metrical Version of the Psalms" and a tragedy on the history ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... as the spirit, being now safe and happy in the spirit-land, has no further need of it."[347] "In this spirit-land eternal youth prevails, there are no old men nor old women, but all are in the full vigour of the prime of life, or are attaining thereto, and having reached that stage never grow older. Old men and old women, who die as such on Tubetube, renew their youth in this happy place, where there are no more sickness, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... superciliously with a cynical air of contempt, stood forward with a firm and elastic step before his silent worshippers. He was a stalwart savage, in the very prime of life, tall, lithe, and active. His figure was that of a man well used to command; but his face, though handsome, was visibly marked by every external sign of cruelty, lust, and extreme bloodthirstiness. One might have said, merely to look at him, he was a being debased by all forms of brutal and hateful ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... morning painting, in his luxuriously appointed studio, the portrait of a man who was in the prime of life, and over whom vulgar prosperity had, in forming him, left everywhere her finger marks plainly to be seen. He was tall and robust, with light eyes and blonde whiskers, and a general air of insisting upon his immense superiority to all the world. That he secretly ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... let us estimate the keenness of that trial. Remember John was a man: he had tasted the sweets of influence; that influence was dying away, and just in the prime of life he was to become nothing. Who cannot conceive the keenness of that trial? Bearing that in mind—what is the prophet's answer? One of the most touching sentences in all Scripture—calmly, meekly, the hero recognises ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... occurrence, in examining the pulmonary structure of those who have resided in large and smoky towns, to find both the substance of the lungs and bronchial glands containing black matter; and this is the case especially with persons who, in such situations, have passed the prime of life. But few, though not living in crowded towns, have not, at some period of their life, come in contact with smoke, and been obliged to breathe it, minutely combined with the air. It is not, therefore, to be supposed improbable, ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... of the principal figure is but too well known. They should have this interesting subject—interesting undoubtedly to the inhabitants—executed by one of their best engravers. It represents the unfortunate Louis quite in the prime of life; and is the best whole length portrait of him which I have yet seen in painting ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... example of Dante's kindly love for children springs from the fact that instead of following the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, who holds that in heaven the risen bodies of baby children will appear in the aspect of the prime of life, our poet discloses them with the charm of babyhood carrolling, as it were, the nursery songs of Heaven. Of those blessed ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... smile, as if he hurt her, she turned to gaze at a photograph that hung over the piano. It was the profile of a handsome man in the prime of life. He was leaning slightly forward, as if yielding beneath a burden of life, or to the pull of fate. He looked out musingly, and there was no hint of rebellion in the contours of the regular features. The hair was brushed ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... fourteen in all, and all young men: indeed it is a singular though very natural feature in the society of these distant settlements, that it is mainly composed of adventurous persons in the prime of life, and has very few grey heads among it. There were no ladies: the trip being a fatiguing one: and we were to start at five o'clock ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... that should be seen; for words convey very little idea of the pathos of the scene. We were walking through the thick jungle on the hillside when on the narrow path we saw a little procession wending its way toward us. In front walked a big, hardened-looking man, in the prime of life; behind him came a child, a slim, wonderfully fair girl of about ten years, lithe and graceful, with large, expressive dark eyes. After her came a woman prematurely old, her face lined ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... in the Chateau de Ramezay Historical Museum where they will doubtless be regarded with interest by scholars. The skulls have been fully identified as of the Indian type, and found to be those of two powerful males in the prime of life and one young woman. The skull in possession of Mr. Earl is doubtless of the same race. Some large stones were found placed above the bodies, and also a number of naturally flat stones which appear to have been used as scoops to excavate. The plateau where ...
— A New Hochelagan Burying-ground Discovered at Westmount on the - Western Spur of Mount Royal, Montreal, July-September, 1898 • W. D. Lighthall
... the prime of life, Mr. Reynolds was an excellent rider, performing all his journeys on horseback. He used to give a ludicrous account of a race he once ran with another youth, each having a lady seated on a pillion behind him; Mr. Reynolds reached the goal first, but when he looked round he found that he had lost ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... Poland, the sister of the King of Poland. But an unhappy family difference induced us to keep our union secret. One dear child bless'd myself, who married the Duke of Cumberland, March 4th, 1767, and died in the prime of life of a broken heart, December 5th, 1774, in France. ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... beyond what others were probably inclined to show. But self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor, and those who are in the prime of life raise their voice and talk artificially to seniors, hastily conceiving them to be deaf and rather imbecile. Gwendolen, with all her cleverness and purpose to be agreeable, could not escape that form of stupidity: it followed in ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... my mother, but many a dear one besides returned "in beauty from the dust" appeared to be present—white-haired old men who had spoken treasured words to me in bygone years; schoolfellows and other boyish friends and companions; and men, too, in the prime of life, of whose premature death in this or that far-off region of the world-wide English empire I had heard from time to time. They came back to me, until the whole room seemed filled with a pale, shadowy procession, moving past me ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... in his former tone, 'at this gentleman our host, not yet in the prime of life, who in so graceful a way and with such courtly urbanity and modesty presides over us! Manners fit for a crown! Dine with the Lord Mayor of London (if you can get an invitation) and observe the contrast. This dear fellow, with the finest cut face I ever saw, a face in perfect drawing, leaves some ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... prime of life, a man of a great length of body, with a deep Herculean torso and limbs that advertised a giant strength. His hawk-nosed face ending in a black forked beard was of a swarthiness accentuated to exaggeration by the snowy white ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... back, no one will question that it would affect the betting on his side unfavorably; we will say to the amount of five per cent. Now the drain upon the resources of the system produced in such a case must be at its minimum, for the subject is a powerful man, in the prime of life, and in admirable condition. If the drug or the blister takes five per cent. from his force of resistance, it will take at least as large a fraction from any invalid. But this invalid has to fight a champion who strikes hard but cannot be hit in return, who will ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... about ten years old, and was partially covered by a linen cloth. The man, whose features bore a marked resemblance to those of the child, was evidently from his attire above the middle rank. His frame was athletic, and as he was scarcely past the prime of life, the irresistible power of the disease, which could in one instant prostrate strength like ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... spot of shade seemed to be attainable. A huzzaing attracted his attention, and he observed that a number of people had gathered before the King's residence, where a brown curricle had stopped, out of which stepped a hale man in the prime of life, wearing a blue uniform, gilt epaulettes, cocked hat, and sword, who crossed the pavement and went in. Bob went up and joined the group. 'What's going ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... aspirant to the Presidency. Henry Clay was grievously disappointed and henceforward sulked in his tent, refusing the Secretaryship of War which the President tendered. Eventually the brilliant young John C. Calhoun took this post. This South Carolinian was in the prime of life, full of fire and dash, ardently patriotic, and nationally-minded to an unusual degree. Of William H. Crawford of Georgia, who retained the Secretaryship of the Treasury, little need be said except ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... you mean, Bill, when you talk of passing in your checks? You're in the very prime of life, man, and—-" ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... moment his countenance bore an expression no language can portray; unimpaired by illness, or the course of nearly fourscore years, time seemed to have restored to his features and complexion the freshness and bloom of the prime of life. In beholding such a blissful termination of mortal existence, we have here a happy illustration of the words of the prophet, "The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... the prime of life, from twenty-five to thirty-five years old, with great heads, short, thick legs bowed out with masses of muscle, and bodies with straight backs sloping to the long, well-feathered tails. Most of them were tuskers—and the sight of one magnificent bull near Dermot made the sportsman's ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... marriage to Miss Andrews, aged twenty-five. It was an embarrassing situation. She was constrained to decline the offer, and as they were traveling in such close relations, the freedom and enjoyment of the journey were seriously impaired. Then Mr. Flower, who was a widower also, but in the prime of life, proposed to the young lady. She accepted him, and they were soon after married at Vincennes, the rejected Birkbeck officiating as father of ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... the prime of life, and at the moment when he seemed to have triumphed over the malice of his enemies, died the prince of Viana, whose character, conspicuous for many virtues, has become still more so for his misfortunes. His first act of rebellion, if such, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... realized that he had to pit his cunning against the craft of others. He was not at all in sympathy with present-day business methods, but he did not see any particular reason why he should constitute himself a reformer. Although still in the prime of life, he cared nothing for society and held aloof from it. If he went to the trouble to keep in touch at all with people of his own set, it was simply for business reasons. What he seemed to delight in most was the life of Bohemia, with its easy camaraderie, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... a wealthy nobleman in the prime of life—had been spending several hours of a fine April morning in his nursery-garden, budding the stems of some young trees with cuttings which had been recently sent ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... were not those of an old man at all. They had the vigor of a man in the prime of life, and their presence in that puckered face of age which confronted Chris was horribly disconcerting. Chris blinked and looked again. Yes, they were still there. Eyes so deeply brown they might well have been black, ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... that the only picture in the room was hung over this fireplace. The picture in question had no artistic value—the painting was flat and poor; even the subject did not strike me for the first moment as anything very remarkable. It was the portrait of a man in the prime of life—about thirty-five, I should have supposed—with the long whiskers and rather prim pose of a portrait made by an evidently poor artist, probably thirty or forty years ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... to age, we made our first fancied obeisance before two distinguished looking people who, however, did not seem entitled to any consideration whatever on the ground of age, being both in the prime of life. And yet, these were Colonel and Mrs. Edward Hill, second of the name at Shirley, and the first master and mistress ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... Greek, Roman, or Armenian faith, and one especial feature of their outward appearance served as a distinctly marked sign of their severance from all known monastic orders—this was the absence of the disfiguring tonsure. They were all fine-looking men seemingly in the prime of life, and they intoned the Magnificat not drowsily or droningly, but with a rich tunefulness and warmth of utterance that stirred to a faint surprise and contempt the jaded spirit of one reluctant listener ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... westward, to win over the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. This was the establishment of Father Piquet, which Celoron had visited in its infancy when on his way to the Ohio, and again on his return. Piquet was a man in the prime of life, of an alert, vivacious countenance, by no means unprepossessing;[29] an enthusiastic schemer, with great executive talents; ardent, energetic, vain, self-confident, and boastful. The enterprise seems to have been of his own devising; but it found warm approval from the Government.[30] ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... evoke him as resembling, with a difference or two, the portraits of the aged Voltaire, and that he had, fiddle in hand and jarret tendu, incited the young agility of our mother and aunt. Edward Ferrero was another matter; in the prime of life, good-looking, romantic and moustachio'd, he was suddenly to figure, on the outbreak of the Civil War, as a General of volunteers—very much as if he had been one of Bonaparte's improvised young marshals; in ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... about my senior Aide; and, besides being past the prime of life, he was of a rather bulky tallness, stolid and phlegmatic. I could readily imagine his style, and a very few passes confirmed it. He was of the ordinary type and I could have run him through without the least effort. As it was, I touched him, ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... repelled me at the same time. He was in the prime of life and undeniably handsome, while there was a look of sagacity, almost ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... suffering from frequent pestilence. It is calculated that about one-tenth of the whole population of the country were killed in battle or died of wounds and disease during the war; and as these must have been nearly all men in the prime of life, it is difficult to understand how the effect on the labour market was not more marked. The enclosing of land for pasture farms, which we shall next have to consider, was probably in many cases an absolute necessity, for the number of men left to till the ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler |
