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A B C   Listen
noun
A B C  n.  
1.
The first three letters of the alphabet, used for the whole alphabet.
2.
A primer for teaching the alphabet and first elements of reading. (Obs.)
3.
The simplest rudiments of any subject; as, the A B C of finance.
A B C book, a primer.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"A B C" Quotes from Famous Books



... people mistake for the truth their cherished opinion and ardent conviction, which is usually any thing but the truth. The science of society—like all human sciences—will be for ever incomplete. The depth and variety of the questions which it embraces are infinite. We hardly know the A B C of this science, as is proved by the fact that we have not yet emerged from the period of systems, and have not ceased to put the authority of the majority in the place of facts. A certain philological society decided linguistic questions by a plurality of votes. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... they might buy. And the man who brought such a love might in truth be all-absorbed therein himself: the poorest of creatures may well be absorbed in the poorest of loves. A heart has to be taught to love, and its first lesson, however well learnt, no more makes it perfect in love, than the A B C makes a savant. The man who loves most will love best. The man who throughly loves God and his neighbour is the only man who will love a woman ideally—who can love her with the love God thought of between them when he made ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... we tell them that the art of writing was utterly unknown (though probably not unheard of) in Norway at the end of the ninth century, and long after that; so that Erling, although a gentleman of the period, and a Sea-king to boot, had not up to the time we write of, learned his A B C! ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... and to discern variety where variety had not been too apparent. There was the change from Granville to Woolridge's, and from Woolridge's to Granville. There was the dinner hour when he rose from his desk and went out to an A B C shop with Booty or some other man. Sometimes the other man had ideas, views of life and so forth, that interested Ransome; if he hadn't, at any rate he was a man. That is to say, he didn't sulk or nag or snap at you; or nip the ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... tell what it means, pray God I may never get breakfast more, when I am hungry. Troth, I am of opinion he is one of those hieroglyphical writers, that by the figures of beasts, plants, and of stones, express the mind, as we do in A B C; or one that writes under hair, as I have heard of a certain notary, Histiaesus,[57] who, following Darius in the Persian wars, and desirous to disclose some secrets of import to his friend Aristagoras, that dwelt afar off, found out ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... there should be too much of the dragon's tooth in his children's disposition, used to find time from his kingly duties to teach them their A B C—which he invented for their benefit, and for which many little people, I am afraid, are not half so grateful to him as ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... made an error of analysis in regard to Mr. Corbin in judging his brain by his topics of conversation. His conversation was limited to the A B C's of life, with which, up to the time of his meeting her, his brain had been fed. When, however, she began to cram it full with all the other letters of the alphabet, it showed itself just as capable of digesting the economic conditions of Egypt as it had previously succeeded ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... its foibles, to sell it bad stuff and bad securities, and then feels hurt because it has a pain in its inside, or a worthless bond at its banker's, while the producers thereof are founding county families. If the public would learn the A B C of investment, and also learn that there is an essential difference between investment and speculation, that they will not blend easily but are likely to spoil one another if one tries to mix them, then the whole business of loan issuing and company promotion would ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers

... to Mrs. Fenelby. "That is the very thing we want! An indirect tax, just as this nation pays its taxes, and the tariff is the very thing! It's as simple as A B C. The nation charges a duty on everything that comes into the country; we will charge a duty on everything that comes into the house, and the money goes into Bobberts' education fund. We won't miss the money that way. That's the beauty ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler

... that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... legally supposed to be defined by the three expressions, "hand, reef, and steer." If he can do those three things, which mean furling or making fast sails, reefing them, and steering the ship, his wages cannot be reduced for incompetency. Yet these things are the A B C of seamanship only. A good SEAMAN is able to make all the various knots, splices, and other arrangements in hempen or wire rope, without which a ship cannot be rigged; he can make a sail, send up or down yards and masts, and ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... not seen thee before, believe, thinkst thou, that thou wert, as thou art, the greatest painter in the world." Whereto Giotto answered promptly:—"Methinks, Sir, he might, if, scanning you, he gave you credit for knowing the A B C." Which hearing, Messer Forese recognized his error, and perceived that he had gotten as good as ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Cuss me for a vool! A B C D. Why didn't they whop my letters into I when a was a boy? A B C"—and so persevering with an industry which he commonly kept ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... afresh for it, than to reach the point across country. The trains to and from the capital are swifter and more frequent, and you are not likely to lose your way in the mazes of Bradshaw if you consult the indefinitely simplified A B C tables which instruct you how to launch yourself direct from London upon any objective, or to recoil from it. My impression is that you habitually drive to a London station as nearly in time to take your train as may be, and that there is very little use for waiting-rooms. This may be why the waiting-room ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... A B C thoroughly, and mark, for yourselves, what you, at present, think the vital events in each century. As you know more, you will think other events the vital ones; but the best historical knowledge only approximates to true thought in that matter; only be sure that what is truly vital ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... been 'sapping' at the Alif Bey (A B C) to-day, under the direction of Sheykh Yussuf, a graceful, sweet-looking young man, with a dark brown face and such fine manners, in his fellah dress—a coarse brown woollen shirt, a libdeh, or felt skull-cap, and a common red shawl round his head and shoulders; writing the wrong way is very ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... for the vagaries of Dark Circles, or even the doings of young ladies with "doubles." The flight of Mrs. Guppy through the air, the elongation of Mr. Home's braces, the insertion of live coals among the intricacies of Mr. S. C. Hall's exuberant locks, are but the A B C which have led them to their present advanced position. These physical "manifestations" may do for the neophytes. They are the initiated. I am the initiated; or I ought to be, if patience and perseverance ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... It is noteworthy for its section; because of the provision for molding grooves in the two sides to which the curtain walls join, and because of the manner in which three of the eight sides were built up as the concreting progressed. The sides a b c, d e and f g h were erected in full column units and the sides c d, e f and h a were erected in sections 2 ft. high as concreting progressed. The yokes were spaced 2 ft. apart. Using 1-in. stuff for yokes and lagging this form as built required about 16 ft. B. M. per foot length of column. Except ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... undoubtedly the express or implied basis of all inference in the Physical Sciences. When we have once accepted that law (as the whole mass of our experience in the purely physical region inclines us to do), then a single instance of A B C being followed by D (when we are quite sure that we have included all the antecedents which we do not know from other experience to be irrelevant) will warrant our concluding that we have discovered a law of nature. On the next occasion ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... I discover that Cod. D, in concert with several copies of the Old Latin (a b c ff^{2} h q, &c.), only removes clause (4) from its proper place in St. Mark's Gospel, in order to thrust it into the parallel place in St. Matthew,—where it supplants the [Greek: he lalia sou delon se poiei] of the earlier ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... it has had time and opportunity to become strong, bold, masculine, potential. Once it had only the knowledge and power to alleviate evil consequences; now it has both the knowledge and the power to deal with evil causes. Now, I say to you, leave this emotional A B C of human charity to nuns and mite societies. It's a good work; let them do it. Give them money, if ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... may, if desired, be slightly (1/32") greater than the thickness of the other member. Divide this line, d e, on the member to be dovetailed, X, into as many equal spaces as there are to be tails (dovetails). From the division points of these spaces, a b c, to the right and left lay off one-half of the greatest width of the mortises to be cut out, and also the same distance from d and from e, as at f f f f and ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... anything, was exemplified by this lad; for he worked my snail into a gallop. He was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and appeared to have taken to speculation at the age when most children are learning A B C. He was now in his fourteenth year, owned two horses, and employed another boy to sell papers for him likewise. His profits upon daily sales of four hundred journals were about thirty-two dollars. He had five hundred dollars in bank, and was debating with Captain ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... about our acts. To work up towards salvation is, in the strict sense of the words, preposterous; it is inverting the order of things. It is beginning at the wrong end. It is saying X Y Z before you have learnt to say A B C. We are to work downwards from salvation because we have it, not that we may get it. And whatever 'good works' may mean, they are the consequences, not the causes, of 'salvation,' whatever that may mean. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... whole being, so to speak, to his profession. There's too much of it for him to divide himself up. Why, take a single specialty; take rheumatism. If I gave my lifetime, or twenty lifetimes, to the study of that one malady, I should not begin to learn the A B C ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... Of dukes, erles, and princes, Barons, cheualiers, escuyers; 24 Barons, knyghtes, and squyers; 8 Les noms dhommes et des femmes, 25 The names of men and of wymmen, Et des mestiers, selon lordre de a b c; 26 And of craftes, after thordre of a b c; Les grandes festes et termes de lan; 28 The grete festes and termes of the yere; 12 Des orfeures, tisserans, & foulons[1], 31 ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton

... disappeared, "there you go, stalking along—stalking along; but you wouldn't have been what you are if you hadn't had a bit of old lame Bartle inside you. The strongest calf must have something to suck at. There's plenty of these big, lumbering fellows 'ud never have known their A B C if it hadn't been for Bartle Massey. Well, well, Vixen, you foolish wench, what is it, what is it? I must go in, must I? Aye, aye, I'm never to have a will o' my own any more. And those pups—what do you think I'm to do with 'em, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... refuses to allow us to hear a word of the broad Doric of his answer. At last—after many bold and stout declarations on the part of Mr. Parker, that he will not be beaten—that he knows the way as well as he does his A B C—and that he will find it if he stays till midnight—he is compelled, by the joint and miserable clamor of us all, to turn back—(a frightful process, as the road is narrow, and the coach will not lock)—to retrace our steps, and take up again the despised high-road, where we had left it. These ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... himself, and not acted with mankind, mistimes, misplaces, runs precipitately and bluntly at the mark, and falls upon his nose in the way. In the common manners of social life, every man of common sense hath the rudiments, the A B C of civility; he means not to offend, and even wishes to please: and, if he hath any real merit, will be received and tolerated in good company. But that is far from being enough; for, though he may be received, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... sir, really you expose yourself when you parade that as a surprising circumstance. Bless your heart and hide, you are ignorant of the very A B C of meanness! ignorant as the unborn babe! ignorant as unborn twins! You don't know anything about it! It is pitiable to see you, sir, a well-spoken and prepossessing stranger, making such an enormous pow-wow here ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... never go to school if I could help it. What's the use of so much learning? I'm going to a trade as soon as I get old enough; and Pete Elder says that a boy who don't know A B C, can learn a trade just as well as ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... in the delicately chosen shade of this oath. He also recited to them a new verse about how he took his Looloo girl to the schoolhouse for to learn her A B C; and as it was quite original and unprintable, the camp laughed and swore joyfully, and rolled in its blankets ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... in the controversy on Edison's generator was a scientific gentleman, who in a long article published in the Scientific American, in November, 1879, gravely undertook to instruct Edison in the A B C of electrical principles, and then proceeded to demonstrate mathematically the IMPOSSIBILITY of doing WHAT EDISON HAD ACTUALLY DONE. This critic concludes with a gentle rebuke to the inventor for ill-timed jesting, and a suggestion to ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... never asked me anything about it. You told me what you wanted done, and I did it. How could I believe you were such an ignoramus as not to know the a b c of the thing you were talking about?" He added, in cynical contempt, "But you needn't worry. You can make it right with the managers by spending a little more money than you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... was buried in Westminster Abbey,—"the first of the long line of poets whose ashes make that edifice illustrious." His poetical history has been divided by Mr. Furnivall into four periods: (1) up to 1371, during which he wrote the "A B C" the "Compleynte to Pit," the "Boke of the Duchesse," and the "Compleynte of Mars"; (2) from 1372 to 1381, which saw the production of "Troylus and Criseyde," "Anelida," and the "Former Age"; (3) from 1381 to 1389, during which his best works appeared, the ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... unequaled in her inventions of new kinds of work. Such things as book-markers and slippers, paper-baskets, bed-quilts and tablecloths, card-baskets, and chair-cushions were all too simple—the mere a b c of the art. Wonders like embroidered pictures for the walls, various kinds of fringes for the legs of pianos, fireplace hangings, gold nets for window-curtains, mottoes for the canary's cage, silk covers ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... then, a' doctor's saws an' whittles, Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, A' kind o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles, He's sure to hae; Their Latin names as fast he rattles as A B C. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... committed; but his day was over. The advance of the Constitutionalists southward compelled him in July to abandon the capital and leave the country. Four months later the American forces were withdrawn from Vera Cruz. The "A B C" Conference, however barren it was of direct results, helped to allay suspicions of the United States in Hispanic America and brought appreciably nearer a ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... alternating in the labor and the play; how his thrifty mother would send him with the provision bag to her own mother's at Hof, who would give him goodies that he would share with some little friend. He tells, too, of his rapture at his first A B C book and its gilded cover, and of his eagerness at school, until his too-anxious father took him from contact with the rough peasant boys and tried to educate him himself, an experience not without value, at least ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... where they teach the Lord knows wut: Three-story larnin' 's poplar now: I guess We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin' By overloadin' children's underpinnin: Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C, An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me. We're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute Thet ever fits us easy while we're in it; Long ez 'twuz futur', 'twould be perfect bliss,— Soon ez it's past, thet time's wuth ten o' this An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told Thet Now's ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... "the squire must be unmarried, and must know, at any rate, how to help at mass, and if that be so, woe is me, for I am married already and I don't know the first letter of the A B C. What will become of me if my master takes a fancy to be an archbishop and not an emperor, as is usual and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... don't mention that as either for or against Mr. Pupkin. That sort of thing is merely the A B C of banking, as he himself told me when explaining why it was that he hesitated to divulge the exact standing of the Mariposa Carriage Company. Of course, once you get past the A B C you can learn a lot that ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... classified. They were all supported by subscription, and a single teacher—who was often a man or a woman incapable of teaching much, even if they imparted all they knew—would have thirty or forty scholars, male and female, from the infant learning the A B C's up to the young lady of eighteen and the boy of twenty, studying the highest branches taught—the three R's, "Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmetic." I never saw an algebra, or other mathematical work higher than the arithmetic, in Georgetown, until after I was appointed to West Point. I then bought a ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... we can add anything to this explanation; the difficulty lies in the audacious sweep of the speculation itself; we will however attempt an illustration, although we fear it will be to illustrate obscurum tier obscurius. Let A B C D be four out of the Infinite number of the Divine attributes. A the attribute of mind; B the attribute of extension; C and D other attributes, the nature of which is not known to us. Now A, as the attribute of mind, is that which perceives all which takes place under B C ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... rejects neither the science nor even the teacher. It is the method of instruction that makes her uneasy. She is afraid lest this young professor, whose knowledge is so extensive, should turn over the pages of the book too quickly and neglect the A B C. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... scorch and wither heresy to the root. For what saith Christ? 'Compel them to come in.' And what saith Paul? 'I would they were cut off That trouble you.' Let the dead letter live! Trace it in fire, that all the louts to whom Their A B C is darkness, clowns and grooms May read it! so you quash rebellion too, For heretic and traitor are all one: Two vipers of one breed—an amphisbaena, Each end a sting: ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... A B C," snapped Braddock, issuing into the vast room, "but we want to know the name of the assassin, if we are to revenge Bolton and get back my mummy. Oh, what a loss!—what a loss! I have lost nine hundred pounds, or say one thousand, considering ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... at the university whose name was Gebhart, who was so well acquainted with algebra and geometry that he could tell at a single glance how many drops of water there were in a bottle of wine. As for Latin and Greek—he could patter them off like his A B C's. Nevertheless, he was not satisfied with the things he knew, but was for learning the things that no schools could teach him. So one day he came knocking ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle

... made at the Bureau of Longitudes concerning population authorize us again to subtract from the total mentioned two millions of young girls, pretty enough to kill; they are at present in the A B C of life and innocently play with other children, without dreading that these little hobbledehoys, who now make them laugh, will one ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... Sandy could make a song like this, by himself; but, you see, he was not entirely alone—there were the baby faeries. They helped a lot; as fast as ever he thought out the words they rhymed them for him—this being a part of the A B C of faery education. ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... said Sergeant Channell to Thessiger, "that Tindal should have decided against me on that point of law which, to me, seemed as plain as A B C." "Yes," replied Thessiger, "but of what use is it that it should have been A B C to you, if the judge was determined to be D E F ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various

... solitary men, who knew nothing beyond their own fields and coppices and wastelands, its excitement came like a magic philter to change the monotony of their days. They were most of them wholly unlettered; knew not their A B C; had only learned the law of the seasons, and the earth, and the trees which grew, and the beasts which grazed; but they had imagination; they had the blood of ancient races; they were neither dolts not boors, though Adone in his wrath called them so. They were fascinated ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... can fuse your guests the better," she went on, as if she were giving a lecture. "Everyone knows that; it's the A B C of entertaining; but they must have something to agree about—a sort of rallying point. And I was the first hostess to discover that no party is complete unless you have someone in it whom all the others ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various

... his moral views—also (let me add) more anglomane in general than I am. He was talking of the English press. He said he 'did it justice for good and noble intentions' (more than I do!), 'but marvelled at its extraordinary ignorance. Those writers did not know the A B C of France. Then, as to Louis Napoleon, whether he was right or wrong, they erred in supposing him not to be in earnest with his constitution and other remedies for France. The fact was, he not only was in earnest—he ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... took an uncommon interest in the person. When a girl likes a man, she thinks she has a right to ill-use him a little bit; he has got her affection to set against a scratch or two; the others have not. So she has not the same right to scratch them. La! listen to me teaching him A B C. Why, David, you know ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... thing!" said Charley, trying with soft pats to get the ashes out of its fur, while George took out of his pocket a queer little pocket-handkerchief, six inches square, with A B C all round the edge, and a portrait of his great namesake in the middle, and said, in a tender tone, "Here, poor kitty, let me wipe your nose; don't cry any more;" and he wiped it so softly that it really seemed to comfort the afflicted ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... so long the able Secretary of the Board of Education in Massachusetts, after pointing out the absurdity of worrying a child's life out, in teaching the A B C, &c., and their doubtful and often-varying sounds utterly destitute of meaning, instead of words which have distinct sounds and distinct meaning, thus winds up:—"Learning his letters, therefore, gives him no new sound; it even restricts his attention ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... in the afternoon, say to him, "Willie, can you read? can you write? can you spell? Do you understand all about Algebra, Geometry; Hebrew, Latin, and Greek?" "Why, papa," the little fellow would say, "hew funny you talk. I have been all day trying to learn the A B C!" Well; suppose I should reply, "If you have not finished your education, you need not go any more." What would you say? Why, you would say, I had gone mad. There would he just as much reason in that, as in the way that people talk ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody

... house, chamber, or building of printer, binder, or seller, for books published contrary to statutes, acts, and proclamations. King James, in the first year of his reign, by letters-patent, granted the Stationers' Company the exclusive privilege of printing Almanacs, Primers, Psalters, the A B C, the "Little Catechism," ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... biggest and best in the whole group. I was brought up the way most girls in Hawaii are brought up. They live in the open, and they know how to ride and swim before they know what six- times-six is. As for me, I can't remember when I first got on a horse nor when I learned to swim. That came before my A B C's. Dad owned cattle ranches on Hawaii and Maui—big ones, for the islands. Hokuna had two hundred thousand acres alone. It extended in between Mauna Koa and Mauna Loa, and it was there I learned to shoot goats ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... the race problem I shall touch but briefly. There is no call for the Negro "to get out of politics;" as the term is popularly used. The fact is the Negro should begin "to get into politics" in the truest sense of the word—that is, to begin at the a b c of political power and come up by the usual processes of individual development. The suffrage is a privilege conferred by the state. States make certain restrictions for their own protection as ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... Newcomb's "recreation," as he called, it,—political economy, we may note that his contributions to it were really voluminous, consisting of papers, popular articles and several books, including "The A B C of Finance" (1877) and "Principles of Political Economy" (1886). Authorities in the science never really took these as seriously as they deserved, possibly because they regarded Professor Newcomb as scarcely orthodox. Some ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... torment children!" But now she went on to explain how dreadfully she had been taken in about the child, and related all the unimaginable things of which she had already been guilty, so that not only would he have to begin with teaching her the A B C, but would have to start with the most rudimentary instruction as regarded everything to do with daily life. She could see only one way out of this disastrous state of affairs, and that was for the tutor to ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... Florence Levasseur's presence in the nursing-home proves as clearly as A B C that it was she who told the manservant to bring me that threatening letter for you! There's not a doubt about it: Florence Levasseur is ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... know why; but her teaching could not have amounted to much, for I went into the schoolroom one day, and found Tommy riding defiantly on the rocking-horse, while poor Miss Feechim stood by him with an A B C in one hand and a long pointer in the other, with which she showed him the letters. When he said them correctly, Miss Feechim gave him a sugar-plum out of the bag on her arm, but when he refused to look at them, which he did as often as not, she only said, "Oh, Tommy!" and shook her ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... simple as A B C," I assured her. "The man at Marlborough Street is the man who let ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... physical sense, it is true, as Mr. Percival Lowell has pointed out, that, with regard to the manners and customs of the people, everything is reversed, and the surest way to go right is to take pains to go dead wrong! "To speak backward, write backward, read backward, is but the A B C ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... Drake, and referred her to the under-house-maids. The under-house-maids declared they were all behindhand and had not a minute to spare—they suggested, not too civilly, that old Mazey had nothing on earth to do, and that he knew the house as well, or better, than he knew his A B C. Magdalen took the hint, with a secret indignation and contempt which it cost her a hard struggle to conceal. She had suspected, on the previous night, and she was certain now, that the women-servants all incomprehensibly resented her presence among them with the same sullen unanimity ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... did not like to play with the A B C boys, was allowed to take the handkerchief and give out the first name. All the rest stood up in a row like a spelling-class, while little Columbus, standing in front of them, held a knotted handkerchief ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... A B C D E is the work of the enemy to be besieged. The working parties advance by the zigzag paths M N and O to the position chosen for the first parallel, K L. At the proper time they proceed by the zigzag paths to the second parallel, H I, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in Virginia a play-chile when the ships come down to get the gopher wood to build the war ships. Old mistis had a son and a daughter and we all played together and slep together. My white folks learned me my A B C's. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... in a chair and held a book in her lap. We stood in front of her. She would point out the letters with her knitting-needle and ask, "What is that letter? And that? And that?" Then she would ask us what the word was. In this way, we learned our A B C's. Then one-syllable, and two-syllable words, and finally to read a book held upside down. I can do it now; and occasionally, if I find a friend reading, I surprise him by glancing over the top of the page and repeating a few lines of ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... the whole sheet thus made, trimmed to the shape of fig. I., care being taken that no two joints in the lengths should be exactly opposite each other. Form two other sheets in a similar manner for the two sides, and of the shape of fig. II. The dotted lines a b c d e f, fig. I., show the portions of the tin round the edges, 1 inch wide, which must be turned up at right angles with the bottom, and to which the sides are to be soldered on the inside; they should have triangular ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... fine fellow. I told her Clawbonny was a farm, and not an estate, you know; that did a good deal, of itself. Then, I entered into an explanation of the consideration of farmers in this country, you know, and made it all as plain as A B C. She is a quick girl, is Emily, and takes a thing ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... not appear that Steevens claimed the Alphabet; which may have suggested the celebrated squib that appeared in the "New Whig Guide," and was popularly attributed to Mr. Croker. It was headed "The Political Alphabet; or, the Young Member's A B C," and begins: ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... received twenty-five cents a week for each pupil, and opened her school with prayer; after which came a chapter of the Bible, with explanations, and the rules of conduct. Then the A B C class was called, because their recital was a hand-to-hand struggle, requiring ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... flow—the every-day people, I am sure, will not take in the blackness of this transaction at this stage of my story, but before it is ended I will lay this and many more of an equally hellish nature before them in such A B C simplicity that all can read the portent as clearly as the Prophet Daniel read the writing on the wall in the ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... art of packing all the ugly appliances and baser necessities of daily life, the pots and kettles and brooms and pails, into the narrowest compass, and hiding them from the aesthetic eye. Mary thought that if she began by learning the homely devices of the villagers—the very A B C of cookery and housewifery—she might gradually enlarge upon this simple basis to suit an income of from five to seven hundred a year. The house-mothers from whom she sought information were puzzled at this sudden curiosity about domestic matters. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... ejaculated Uncle Beamish, unconsciously raising his voice a little. "Wilson bought him, and his bringin' us here is as plain as A B C. And now he ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... question of the elders was right, inasmuch as it recognised that the Lord had smitten them, but wrong inasmuch as it betrayed that they had not the faintest notion that the reason was their own moral and religious apostasy. They had not learned the A B C of their history, and of the conditions of national prosperity. They stand precisely on the Pagan level, believing in a national God, who ought to help his votaries, but from some inexplicable caprice does not; or who, perhaps, is angry at the omission of some ritual observance. What an answer ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... then a' doctor's saws and whittles, Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles, He's sure to hae; Their Latin names as fast he rattles As A B C. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... me so I would not choose a book to know Than that, be sweeter wise; Might some one else so learned be, And leave me just my A B C, Himself could have ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... again. I see I don't even know the A B C of this business. In the old days the leech was a physician. You don't mean I'm to drown ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... got dry. So I starts at one end to examine the line o' soft ashes that divided the bend off o' the plain—an' har'ly a sign o' traffic across it yet. Had n't went, not fifteen chain, before I bumps up agen the kid's tracks, plain as A B C, crossin' out towards the plain. Coo-ees for Cunningham; shows him the tracks; an' the two of us follers the line o' ashes right to the other end, to see if the tracks come back. No (adj.) tracks. So we tells the missus; an' she clears-out for the plain, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... native. "A whole herd of names, honest to God. Most any of 'em has five or six, the way the Denver Post tells it. Me, I can't keep mind of so many fancy brands. I'll give you the A B C of it. The old parties are Lord James and Lady Jim Farquhar, leastways I heard one of the young ladies call her Lady Jim. The dude has Verinder burnt on about eight trunks, s'elp me. Then there's a Miss Dwight and a Miss Joyce Seldon—and, oh, yes! a Captain Kilmeny, and an ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... right there—you think so yourself, do you not Carrie?" I asked anxiously, for this seemed to me the A B C of common sense. ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced not only that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know the A B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant little Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any Potemkins or Suvorovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced that there were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war, but only a sort of puppet show ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... 'M. Beautrelet, senior'! What then? The way in which the operation was performed? The miracle by which your father was taken out of Cherbourg Arsenal, in spite of his twenty body-guards? Pooh, it's as easy as A B C! And the fact remains that the luggage has been dispatched. What do ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... liar," said Mrs. Peters, reinterring the note. "No tea store, nor no A B C store, nor no junk shop would have you. I rubbed the skin off both me hands washin' jumpers and overalls to make that dollar. Do you think it come out of them suds to buy the kind you put into you? Skiddoo! Get your mind off ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... I never remember one—unnecessarily," he answered. "It is the A B C of my profession. To-day I believe that it is Mr. Guest, and his friend Mr. Courage, whom I ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... with freedom." Half this blessed Sunday at this country house I have been ramming the idea down the throat of the Lord Chancellor[37]. He sees it, too, being a Scotchman. I take the members of the Government, as I get the chance or can make it, and go over with them the A B C of the President's principle: no territorial annexation; no trafficking with tyrants; no stealing of American governments by concession or financial thimble-rigging. They'll not recognize another Huerta—they're ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... abolished, even the dullest will then say to himself: 'Why should I have to work long and hard for the simple reason that it pleases my neighbors to shove a dozen new members into society?'" It should seem that a critic should first acquaint himself with the A B C of Socialism before presuming to write upon the subject, and such preposterous ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... play, I must have a hand in it, For won't I teach the supers how to stalk and stand in it? Tho' that blessed Shakespeare never gives a ray to them, I explain the text, and then it's clear as day to them![1] Plain as A B C is a plot historical, When I overhaul allusions allegorical! Shakespeare's not so bad; he'd have more pounds and pence in him, If actors stood aside, and let me ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... who is in spirit a modern. But it marked the turning point. Benavente the dramatist, Azorin the critic, Ruben Dario the poet, Pio Baroja the novelist, all date from this period, belonging to and of the new generation, and, together with the Valencian Blasco Ibanez, form the A B C ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... ears; her heart was beating almost painfully, as if with weight of a novel kind of fear, that yet was not altogether fear. Stafford looked at her with the man's, the lover's eagerness, but her face told him nothing. She was so ignorant of the very A B C of love that there was no start of surprise, no word or movement which might guide him; but his instant thought was that she was ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... poor man says he has succeeded in learning his A B C, his Paternoster, and his Ave Mary, but he cannot, do what he will, learn his Creed. He sets out, therefore, to find some one whose life, according with his profession, may give him a hope that he will teach him his creed aright. He applies to the friars. One after another, every order abuses ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... which is coextensive with that one and the same, the other may be predicated of that which is thus coextensive." The fact of this coextensiveness must be ascertained by [Greek: nous], in other words, by the Inductive Faculty. We will take Aldrich's instance. All Magnets attract iron A B C are Magnets | Presupposed Syllogism reasoning A B C attract iron. ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing the accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast. Property has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create enough to satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows that the productivity of labor within the last few decades far exceeds normal demand a hundredfold. But what are normal demands to an abnormal institution? The only demand that property recognizes ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... its price, and that he desired above all else to become a rich man—a truly rich man, and marry a fairy-princess sort of person. And as far as education was concerned he felt that if he was not quite so brushed up on his A B C's as he was on minding his P's and Q's the result would not be half bad. Unconsciously his attitude toward the world was a composite of the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, the cynical wisdom of Omar Khayyam, and plain and not to be ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... 'you'll find a pure mouth there, boys, because the heart is pure; you'll see no letters of introduction to the devil,' as the chaplain called cards, 'in his knapsack.' By the way, he was so hard on cards, that even the boatmen, who knew them better than their A B C's, were ashamed to play them. He would say, 'Snowden is brave as man can be; he has a right to be, he is prepared for every fate. A christian, boys, makes all the better soldier for his being a Christian,' and he would tell us of Washington, Col. Gardner, that preacher that ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong



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